Abortion in Ireland ‘Silence is breaking 12 hearts a day’ but that could change soon
treland’s abortion regime has been responsible for a litany of tragedies in recent years. The death of Savita Halappanavar, denied a life-saving abortion during her miscarriage; the state-sponsored abuse of Miss Y, a suicidal
teenage asylum seeker and rape victim, forced to carry her pregnancy to viability and deliver by C-section; a brain-dead woman kept alive, effectively as an incubator, against her family’s wishes. And there are plenty more mundane, yet nonetheless heartbreaking, stories of approximately 12 women a day who travel to the UK to access abortion services.
In the last year, something fundamental has shifted. The Irish pro-choice movement is getting loud. Actors and writers including Tara Flynn, Helen Linehan and Susan Cahill have shared their abortion stories, bravely breaking taboos. An “abortion bus” flouted the law to tour Ireland distributing medication. Comedian Gráinne Maguire had us all tweeting details of our periods to the taoiseach, Enda Kenny. Activist Anna Cosgrave designed distinctive Repeal jumpers, so that on any given day in Dublin you will see supporters with their commitment to repealing the 1983 eighth amendment to the constitution emblazoned across their chests. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The last two weeks have seen some of the most extraordinary activism yet in the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment. Under the Twitter handle @twowomentravel, two friends live-tweeted their journey to England so that one of them could access an abortion, turning a personal crisis into a powerful political action. Answering my questions, on the condition that her anonymity was preserved, the companion explained that while planning the journey her friend decided she wanted something good to come from it for Irish women.
“What’s the alternative?” she asks, “Silence? Silence is breaking 12 Irish hearts a day. Silence is trapping migrant women in desperate situations, silence has the blood of Savita on its hands, silence is the shape of Miss Y’s devastation. Silence has devastated the women and girls of Ireland, but now it’s time to talk, and get real.”
They certainly got real. The pictures they shared were striking in their ordinariness: boarding a plane in the cold grey of dawn; views from taxi windows; waiting rooms with magazines; a basic hotel. They tagged Kenny in each. The most controversial image is a lightly bloodstained sheet, which they felt was important to show: they were certainly not the first women to face a long trek home, bleeding and sore.
“The anti-choice brigade have been all over that photo,” the friend tells me. “The realities of women’s bodies have been glossed over for too long. We bleed, and we birth, and it’s not pretty, but that’s life, and that reality needs to be brought to the fore. There’s no realism in the philosophical focus of the anti-choice side. They can speculate until the cows come home about when life begins. In fact, they have speculated so loudly and for so long that real lives of women and girls have ended unnecessarily.”
teenage asylum seeker and rape victim, forced to carry her pregnancy to viability and deliver by C-section; a brain-dead woman kept alive, effectively as an incubator, against her family’s wishes. And there are plenty more mundane, yet nonetheless heartbreaking, stories of approximately 12 women a day who travel to the UK to access abortion services.
In the last year, something fundamental has shifted. The Irish pro-choice movement is getting loud. Actors and writers including Tara Flynn, Helen Linehan and Susan Cahill have shared their abortion stories, bravely breaking taboos. An “abortion bus” flouted the law to tour Ireland distributing medication. Comedian Gráinne Maguire had us all tweeting details of our periods to the taoiseach, Enda Kenny. Activist Anna Cosgrave designed distinctive Repeal jumpers, so that on any given day in Dublin you will see supporters with their commitment to repealing the 1983 eighth amendment to the constitution emblazoned across their chests. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The last two weeks have seen some of the most extraordinary activism yet in the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment. Under the Twitter handle @twowomentravel, two friends live-tweeted their journey to England so that one of them could access an abortion, turning a personal crisis into a powerful political action. Answering my questions, on the condition that her anonymity was preserved, the companion explained that while planning the journey her friend decided she wanted something good to come from it for Irish women.“What’s the alternative?” she asks, “Silence? Silence is breaking 12 Irish hearts a day. Silence is trapping migrant women in desperate situations, silence has the blood of Savita on its hands, silence is the shape of Miss Y’s devastation. Silence has devastated the women and girls of Ireland, but now it’s time to talk, and get real.”
They certainly got real. The pictures they shared were striking in their ordinariness: boarding a plane in the cold grey of dawn; views from taxi windows; waiting rooms with magazines; a basic hotel. They tagged Kenny in each. The most controversial image is a lightly bloodstained sheet, which they felt was important to show: they were certainly not the first women to face a long trek home, bleeding and sore.
“The anti-choice brigade have been all over that photo,” the friend tells me. “The realities of women’s bodies have been glossed over for too long. We bleed, and we birth, and it’s not pretty, but that’s life, and that reality needs to be brought to the fore. There’s no realism in the philosophical focus of the anti-choice side. They can speculate until the cows come home about when life begins. In fact, they have speculated so loudly and for so long that real lives of women and girls have ended unnecessarily.”
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