Repealing the 8th means… no more shaming tragedy

The eighth amendment affects many aspects of Irish society.

From healthcare to human rights, the law prohibits women in Ireland from making decisions about their own bodies, futures, and lives. Repealing the 8th means a change for many aspects of society in Ireland. This is one of them. You can follow the rest of this series here.

Some women choose to get abortions because they aren't ready to be mothers. Some decide they don't want to be pregnant, and others can't afford another child. Some women also get abortions for medical reasons. One of the more common phrases you'll hear in the lead up to the referendum on May 25 is fatal foetal abnormality or fatal foetal anomaly - FFA for short. FFA occurs when the foetus is affected by a condition that means survival outside of the womb will not be possible. FFA is not one single condition and nor is it a list of specific conditions. It is characterised by symptoms occurring in the womb, making the condition fatal before, or in the hours or minutes after, birth. Regarding the eighth amendment, FFA does not refer to a non-fatal anomaly that will allow a baby to survive post-birth. Many FFA cases are discovered during the second trimester, however some can also be found earlier. It is rare that an anomaly is detected in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, but it can happen.

At the moment, when a pregnant woman in Ireland is told that she is experiencing FFA, she is given two options. The first is to continue with her pregnancy knowing that her baby is not developing correctly and will not survive. The second is to travel abroad for a termination on medical grounds. The British Pregnancy Advisory Clinic (BPAS) are one of the UK clinics that offer terminations to women traveling from Ireland in cases of FFA. The clinic offers both surgical and medical abortions up to 24 weeks in these cases. Both forms of these terminations are safe and do not have any effect on later pregnancies. Last year, Tracey Smith spoke to Her about how she travelled to Liverpool for an induced labour after her baby was given a terminal diagnosis. The Mayo woman was 22 weeks pregnant when she discovered that her baby, Grace, had a fatal foetal abnormality. She said she opted to travel because she "couldn't bear" to watch her baby pass away. "I knew at that moment that having an early inducement was 100 percent the right thing to do for that tiny baby," she said. Neither Tracey nor her partner could afford to return to Liverpool for Grace's funeral. They received her ashes by courier three weeks later.

When a woman receives a termination after 20 weeks gestation, it is more likely that she will need to spend the night in the clinic. It is also possible that she will need to make more than one visit to the clinic and that her recovery time will be longer. In 2004, Helen Linehan discovered that the 11-week-old foetus she was carrying would not live long outside of the womb. As she and her husband, Graham, were living in London at the time, she opted to terminate the pregnancy near her home. Later, when she returned to Ireland, Helen realised that she would have been forced to carry her dying baby to term. She said she didn't know how she would have "got through that."

“It would have been life-changing. To endure the full-term pregnancy, and to come home empty-handed and with the physical changes that come with pregnancy – it would have been awful. "I don’t know how I would I have got through that, mentally or physically."

An FFA diagnosis is a tragedy. Repealing the eighth means that if a woman in Ireland discovers that her baby has FFA, her doctors and medical team will be legally able to asses the situation and provide safe options. It would also mean that a woman experiencing an FFA diagnosis would have the option to end her pregnancy early at home, instead of being sent abroad.