THE Irish Women's Abortion Support Group (IWASG) held a conference in London at the weekend at which members called on the British government to end the clear "disparity of law" and extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.
The conference was organised to address "a strategy for the future" in the light of greater access to abortion information in Ireland. The access to information had resulted in approaches to the IWASG "really dropping off and so we only see the direst cases", a spokeswoman said. But that was on no account a criticism by the organisation, which admitted that before the referendum "we had to rely on our telephone number being plastered on toilet doors and bridges" in order to provide women with abortion information.
The IWASG, which was set up by a group of "emigrant and second generation" women living in the United Kingdom in 1984, says that it can no longer "provide a band aid which allows the Irish Government to abdicate its responsibility towards Irish women and working class women in particular, who are in really heartbreaking situations". Since 1984, the organisation has provided the practical and emotional support that women who travel to Britain for an abortion "desperately need". In some, admittedly dire situations, the organisation will organise and pay for a woman's abortion and even raise the funds for a flight home, but due to the increased access to abortion information in Ireland, the organisation now says it needs to re think its policies.
A spokeswoman for IWASG, Ms Michelle Dunne, said: "We need to move the situation forward and push our work into the broader framework of reproductive rights. It is an absolute necessity now that since we are dealing less and less with inquiries from Ireland we need to address the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. The act established a woman's right to abortion but we have had reports from Belfast that many women are being denied information, or given very vague information on abortion and even then in only restricted circumstances."
At the conference, the members discussed strengthening its links with other abortion support groups in Ireland and in Northern Ireland. The conference also heard of the difficulties facing a number of women in Co Cork who were being harassed by "very active, militant pro life groups", who were making access to abortion information "extremely difficult".