Sir, – Further to the letter published on ofMarch 17th regarding rape crisis statistics and the approximately 8 per cent of female survivors who become pregnant as a result of rape, there is a critical aspect of our statistics that needs to be appreciated.
We in rape crisis can only talk statistically about survivors’ pregnancy outcomes. We do not collect the data to speak about survivors’ choices. Indeed, we know from individual survivors that their pregnancy outcomes were not by their choice. Under current circumstances of access to abortion in Ireland, we cannot assume all of these pregnancy outcomes are by choice.
We may hypothesise that a woman, in her thirties or forties, in a strong socioeconomic bracket, with legal status in Ireland and a right to travel, has a wider set of choices than an asylum seeker living in direct provision with little money, limited understanding of Irish law and no right to travel. Their circumstances are different again to the child who is pregnant following rape and whose choices are largely mediated through her financial autonomy and her parents’ or guardians’ choices. But all of them face degrees of constraints that may mean they cannot be said to have choice.
In Ireland for a pregnant rape survivor who is coming to terms with the fundamental violation of her body and her autonomy, and who decides that the continuation of that pregnancy is not her choice and not with her consent, the Eight Amendment of the Constitution can look a lot like more of the same. – Yours, etc,
CLÍONA SAIDLÉAR, PhD
Strategic
and Programmes Executive,
Rape Crisis Network Ireland,
30 Merrion Square,
Dublin 2.