*This piece contains details which may prove upsetting to some readers.
This is absolutely harrowing.
In Her Shoes – a Facebook group that has been set up in order for women to share their stories on how the 8th amendment could have changed their lives – has recently posted about a woman who got pregnant in the 1990s.
She was only 16-year-old and had to go to the hospital in her uniform.
As she tells the story of how she was raped, and how her baby ended up with disabilities, she wants to Repeal the 8th so other women can choose what they want to do with their own bodies.
Here, she recounts her story:
“I was 16, it was mid 1990’s. I don’t think we even had divorce yet in Ireland. It was my first relationship, if you could even call it that at that age. He came from the new family who had moved into our small town and for some reason I was drawn to him. I was in 6th year at school, top of all my classes.
“This guy, Dave we’ll call him. He told me that all the girls where he’d come from were having sex for years by my age. He called me a backwards culchie & said when I got to college that September that nobody would be into me cos they’d all know I was frigid. He said he’d met my father in the bar and even my father told him to ‘break her in.’
“I was such an idiot that I believed every word he said. I now know, after years of denial & eventual counselling, that he was technically grooming me and that what happened that night was rape.”
She says that she finally “saw sense” and left the man, but at that stage she was already pregnant.
“I had to visit the hospital to get a test done, in my school uniform as I was supposed to be at after school study.
“My gp told me it was positive and we worked out I was about 10 weeks by then. He told me there were some special homes I could go live in, until the baby was born. He said there was one he knew in Dublin and they’d look after me.
“He also told me I had 24 hours to tell my parents or else he’d tell them.”
The anonymous woman went on to say that telling her parents was difficult, with her dad freaking out and her mother going silent.
“I had no other option other than to seek the support of my parents. I told my parents the next afternoon. My mother was shell shocked, my father shouted and roared. Threw things around. Called my siblings into the room and told them ‘look what she has done to all of us.’
“The next day I approached my still silent mother. I asked her to help me ‘go on the boat.’ Never before or since have I seen such repulsion & vehemence on her face. Now she found her voice and told me that it was bad enough her daughter was a hussy but she could never live with herself knowing her daughter was also a murderer!”
“In my bedroom all that evening and night I planned my suicide. It was the only solution. There was simply nothing else to be done.
“The next morning my mother came to me and said that even though she didn’t agree with it she would try and get the money together.”
However, within a few days, her mother came to her again and said she couldn’t make up the money, and she would have to find a solution on her own.
“Back in school that week, the rumours were rife. The career guidance counsellor called me into her office and asked me if they were true. I told her they were. When she heard I was over the 12 weeks she said it was too late to have an abortion.
“I said this to my mother that evening and she replied well you made your bed you may lie in it now.'”
As she continued on with her pregnancy, the woman says she was judged and was frightened to go anywhere as people would think she was “a slut.”
“I missed hospital visits because I couldn’t bear all the older women & couples looking at me in disgust as we shared the waiting room. I sat my leaving cert obviously pregnant.
“One examiner exclaimed loudly that they couldn’t supervise the room I was in as they were so offended by my presence.”
She then says that as her due date loomed closer, she was a mix of emotions, however her family were not there to help her.
“Eventually the baby was born. When I knew the day was drawing near I got a little excited. I had decided I would do my best to look after this poor baby.
“I was allowed live at home but I was told the baby was wholly my responsibility and to never ask for any help. I wished again & again that somehow I could have had an abortion.
“I had a baby girl. She was a beautiful baby. She was also a very ill baby. She had to be resuscitated a couple times at birth, she had heart & lung problems. After a while in intensive care in Dublin they found out she had a disability.”
“Since then my daughter has needed full time care. She is now an adult. I have never had another relationship or any further children. My life is spent looking after my daughter’s needs. I work during the few hours she is at day services.
“She is a happy beautiful soul, trapped in a broken body.”
The woman goes on to say that things could have been different for her if she had a choice – she might have still gone down the same road, but at least she would have chosen to.
“I will say this here for the purposes of this post only, I often wonder how different my life would have been if abortion was more accessible in Ireland. In times when I’m exhausted from looking after her I wish I’d had an abortion.
“Or at least, I wish I’d had the choice. An available choice. I may have chosen to keep the pregnancy anyway.”
She finishes the post by saying:
“Repeal the 8th so that women, daughters, sisters & mothers can have at least the basic amount of sensible real time support in the event of a pregnancy. Only then will Ireland’s attitude change for the better and girls here will live their lives a little easier.”
You can read the full Facebook post on In Her Shoes – Women Of The Eight here.
