It Is Time To Recognise Women’s Right To Choose

It’s Monday evening and I’m at the protest. We’re standing outside City Hall demanding that the government “legislate for X” before the summer. There are hundreds of people here, men and women, of various ages but I’m thinking – “This is bullshit!”

It’s bullshit that Karen isn’t here, or Louise, or Jenny or Maura or any of the other women I know, who have had abortions. Karen was raped on holiday when she was 25 and became pregnant as a result; Louise had an abortion when she was in college; Jenny chose a termination because she and her husband couldn’t afford a third child; Maura fell pregnant in the middle of a mental health breakdown.
Why are they not here, making their voices heard? And where are the rest of the 4,000 to 6,000 Irish women who travel every year to access abortion services? It is estimated that at least 150,000 Irish women have had abortions in the UK since 1980. The true figure is likely to be much higher as these numbers reflect only women giving Irish addresses at UK clinics. Many thousands more will have used the UK address of a friend or family member, obtained an abortion on the Continent, or, in the last few years, arranged to have the abortion pill sent to them via a UK address.
They’re not here because admitting you’ve had an abortion still carries a significant stigma in this country. If they were with us, we’d have blocked Dame St. from Christchurch to Trinity and goddamn it, we’d make the government listen to us.
Perhaps though they chose to stay at home because what we’re asking for is also bullshit. We’re asking for abortion if the mother’s life is at risk, including the risk of suicide as grounds for a termination. We’re asking that we not become fatalities of legislative and medical cowardice, in the way that Savita Halappanavar did. Well, what we’re asking for is a pittance! It’s merely crumbs and morsels compared to our right to bodily autonomy.
X case legislation won’t include terminations for victims of rape or incest. Nor will women with unviable pregnancies be allowed an abortion. It most certainly won’t allow abortion for those conscientious, decent, loving women who, for whichever of what might be a dozen different reasons, feel that they simply cannot and will not proceed with a pregnancy.
Would legislating for X have helped Karen, Louise, Jenny, Maura or most of the women who’ve travelled for abortions? No. Legislating for X may be necessary in the short-term, in that it will potentially save lives, but it is not nearly enough.
For 21 years, cowardly anti-choice Irish politicians have steadfastly ignored the Supreme Court’s judgement. Anti-choice members of Fine Gael’s current administration, such as Lucinda Creighton, have claimed that legislating for X will eventually lead to “abortion on demand.”
Towards the end of April, these anti-choice fears appeared to be confirmed when Labour TDs Aodhán Ó Riordáin and Anne Ferris were ‘caught’ on tape admitting that X case legislation was only the first step. Well, here at City Hall, we’re making no secret of that. Speakers Clare Daly, Dr. Peadar O’Grady from Doctors for Choice and Action for X’s spokesperson Ailbhe Smyth all proclaim their ambition to have the eighth amendment repealed. It is these statements that get the loudest and most sustained cheers from the crowd.
By the time you read this, the draft legislation will have been published. Despite that, I suspect we’ll still be arguing over whether or not ‘suicidal ideation’ is grounds for an abortion. The ‘no’ camp claims that this option will be abused by women. What they are really suggesting is that women in their thousands, being perfidious sluts, will sham feelings of despair in order to end their pregnancies.
Just think about this: even if the government did legislate for X and included suicidal feelings as grounds, how many women would risk their fates to the hands of the Irish authorities? Only the most desperate, that’s who.
It may be a completely unjust imposition, but middle-class women always have the option to travel for an abortion, and most working-class women do too. A woman who can’t find the money, either from her savings, her partner, her family, friends, a credit card or the credit union, or even by not paying her bills for a few months, is a woman in dire financial circumstances – and presumably also in a very difficult position when it comes to having to raise a child. Chances are, she is one of the most vulnerable members of our society, perhaps desperately poor, unemployed, an asylum seeker unable to leave the country, or – worse still – underage.
It seems to me that any woman desperate enough to fake suicidal tendencies, and ask the government for help, must be very desperate indeed – and if she is not genuinely suicidal to begin with, she’s very likely to be so if she’s refused a termination.
If you think that abortion is akin to murder, that’s your prerogative. But the inescapable truth is that demanding restrictive laws making it almost impossible to obtain one in Ireland won’t make a blind bit of difference to the reality that Irish women choose abortion. If it did, over 150,000 Irish women would not have had abortions.
So instead of trying to force their own moral agenda on everyone else, would members of the current anti-choice lobby not be better to focus their efforts on helping to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place? And likewise on doing everything they can to ensure that no-one with a crisis pregnancy has to choose a termination because of ongoing financial difficulties?
To achieve this, we need comprehensive, universal, age-appropriate sex education in every single primary and secondary school in the country. We need carefully-structured access to free contraception, for men and women, so that anyone who cannot afford the pill or condoms can still get them. We need to change the attitudes of young women so that they don’t feel ‘slutty’ for carrying condoms and empower them so that nobody feels pressurised into having unprotected sex.
In addition, we need to make single motherhood financially viable by offering subsidised childcare for mothers who want to return to work or education. Over 200,000 Irish children live below the poverty line. This is a national disgrace – we need to ensure that welfare payments are more than adequate, because this is the right thing for a civilised society to do.
But even with all of these things in place, there will still be terminations because there will still be contraceptive failures, and rape, and women whose mental or physical health is endangered by pregnancy – and for those women, they should have the option of abortion available to them if they conscientiously and thoughtfully decide that they need it, which in truth, is what happens when most women make the decision to terminate.
In the end however, issues such as health risks, suicide, rape, incest and unviable pregnancies are all irrelevant. There is only one question – do you trust women to make decisions about their own fertility or don’t you?

A national demonstration is planned in Dublin on Saturday, May 18. If you believe in the right to choose, come out and join us.