Every day 11 women travel to England to access abortion services. An unknown number of women travel to the Netherlands and at least one woman a day risks 14 years in prison by taking abortion pills at home.
Women choose abortions for a variety of reasons, because they are not ready to be a parent, because they have a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality, because continuing with the pregnancy would endanger their health or because they cannot afford another child.
Aine (not her real name) shared her story of going to England after being raped. Aine travelled alone, frightened and angry with her country for turning her out in her moment of need.
“I was out celebrating my best friend’s 25th birthday. I drank way too much. Being from a small town I always felt safe to do so, had umpteen times before and never endured any negative repercussions.”
“I was stumbling home on my regular route when I noticed that an ex-boyfriend of my older sister had trailed after me from the nightclub. He wanted to see me home safely, or so he said. I don’t want to get into specifics because it’s something that I’ve set aside and don’t want to relive.
“I knew the next morning I was pregnant, as I washed the blood stain from between my legs the realisation sank in – who would believe he raped me? I was drunk, scantily clad, spotted chatting and drinking with him earlier, happy to accept the escort home”.
Aine took a pregnancy test in the “dirty staff toilet” of the place she worked in.
“I felt my stomach hit the floor as I received the confirmation that I was indeed pregnant”.
She had to wait six weeks to travel as she was working a minimum wage job and it took her that long to save up enough money. She told her friends that she was going on a “shopping trip across the water.”
“I travelled straight to the clinic with my little squeaky wheeled luggage, small enough for carry on but hardly big enough to fit the resentment I harboured toward my beloved country for forcing me to flee for a solution, seeking sanctuary in a foreign country”.
On arrival at the clinic, Aine was accosted by a group of pro-lifers who screamed at her that she was a murderer.
“I was met outside by a group of protestors, religious fanatics waving crosses and spitting verses with a viciousness that disturbed me. Screaming in my face that I was a child murderer and blocking my path. Can you imagine that moment? I must have been on autopilot because even though it happened to me, it’s only now when I think about it that I realise the additional trauma that seeped into my already septic wound. I never asked for this”.
“But from the moment I stepped into that Marie Stopes clinic, I felt nothing but relief. I was treated with respect, kindness and understanding. I heard the receptionist mutter to the nurse in charge of the consultation ‘another Irish girl’, I wondered how many of us Irish girls had passed through those doors, walked down that narrow hall, hearts heavy with a guilt imposed upon us by a warped viewpoint and outdated system”.
“After my consultation, I handed her the sweat stained sterling I had snared in my hand since counting it on the tube.”
“After the procedure, I waited in the recovery room, while there three other women were wheeled in to share the suite. Two of whom were Irish. We sheepishly greeted each other with the usual familiar colloquialisms, half afraid one would be a ‘cousin’s neighbour from over the road’. The fourth female in the room was tended to by her partner, while three pairs of Irish eyes peered enviously. Three girls had made the crossing companionless.”
Unable to afford a nice hotel, Aine spent the night in what she calls a “dingy dive”. It took her four and a half hours to travel across London to get to her accommodation.
“I left the clinic that day after regaining control. Control over my choices and my body. I left with no regrets. I have evaded lamenting over a life I did not choose.”
Aine says she wants to share her story now because she is angry about how she was treated.
“Pro-lifers manipulate facts to sensationalise and scare. Pictures of foetuses, false facts and bullying tactics, attacking fellow Irish women. I am not a child murderer. I am not an evil person. I am a young Irish woman.”
With a referendum date expected soon stories like Aine’s deserve to be heard. There is no excuse for a compassionate country to treat women like Aine so appallingly in their hour of need. 11 women a day, leaving Ireland, many of them alone. That the Pro-life movement uses the term “Love Both”, while screaming “Murderer” at rape victims outside clinics belies the hypocrisy of their stance. If they had their way Aine would have been forced to stay pregnant and give birth to her rapist’s child – against her wishes.
This is our modern-day Magdalene Laundry, that will one day be looked back at with astonished outrage – that Ireland sent its women abroad to access reproductive healthcare. The women of Ireland deserve better.
