Abortion: 'No person requested to see the committee about the actual experience of abortion in Great Britain." These words, which appear in Chapter Five of the report by the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on abortion, more or less sum up the sense of unreality which pervades the whole debate on abortion.
It is difficult to imagine the teachers' strike, or even the dispute over the deregulation of taxis, being examined without the views of those directly involved being heard. Yet on this issue, which has already affected the lives of tens of thousands of Irish women, the voices of those who have decided to travel to Britain are entirely absent.
The committee has tried, at second hand, to describe their situation. Eight pages of a 700-page report are devoted to "The Experience of Abortion". The chapter relies heavily on research commissioned by the Minister for Health and carried out by three members of the department of sociology at Trinity College Dublin. Commendable though the research is, it hardly measures up to the scale of a problem which, at a conservative estimate, sees more than 6,000 women each year having abortions abroad.
The committee's report says this research provided "the best picture available to us of what abortion means to Irish women". It may be that, within the terms of reference laid down by the Oireachtas, the committee fulfilled its remit. But it is hard to believe it could not find any women who were prepared to give evidence about a decision which, to quote its own report, "is never lightly undertaken".
Much has been written, not least in the columns of this newspaper, about how the debate on abortion has changed for the better. The emphasis, we have been told, is on compassion. There is a high degree of smug satisfaction in remarking how far we have come, in that there is now a consensus on the need for measures - earlier sex education, availability of condoms - to reduce the number of crisis pregnancies. This consensus has been achieved at the cost of narrowing the debate to exclude the experience of most Irish women who seek abortions. The report reflects this. Only one of the options on offer is prepared to go even as far as recommending legislation to take account of the Supreme Court's judgment in the X case. Another proposes leaving the present legal situation unchanged. What is now emerging as the most likely runner is the third option - a referendum which, if carried, will explicitly exclude the threat of suicide as grounds for an abortion.
One only has to remember the 1983 referendum to see how far the debate has regressed. At that time it was possible to raise the problems facing a woman who knows that the foetus she is carrying is likely to be severely handicapped. Or that of a wife who becomes pregnant as a result of marital rape. These, like the other factors which influence a woman's decision to have an abortion, are ignored in the Oireachtas Committee's proposals. The debate has been narrowed to focus on the issue of what most Irish doctors, though by no means all, consider to be "acceptable medical practice".
There have been attempts to break the deafening silence of women who have faced an unwanted pregnancy. The research referred to above, carried out by the department of sociology at Trinity, is one example. More recently, the Irish Family Planning Association has published a short book, The Irish Journey, in which 18 women recount their experiences. Their names have been changed but, taken together, they provide a believable portrait of Irish abortion. One woman describes her experience of finding herself pregnant at 47, having had seven children and two miscarriages.
Another already had a severely handicapped child and was fearful she would not be able to give another baby the attention he or she deserved. A third, pregnant by a violent husband, believes that her decision to have an abortion turned her life around, forcing her to take responsibility for her own life and those of her children.
One woman speaks of her hope that her daughter, if faced with a crisis pregnancy, will be treated with "dignity in her own country". What comes through, again and again, is their anger at the need for secrecy and the stigma that is attached to their experience back in Ireland.
It is almost 20 years since I wrote an article, in the now sadly defunct Hibernia, in which I said that I had had an abortion. That is almost as long as I have been reporting on Northern Ireland, where at least we now see the beginnings of a credible and inclusive solution.
Now my childbearing years are past. My children, who are reared, are by far the most important thing in my life.
The decision to have an abortion seemed to me at the time to be both responsible and moral. I have never regretted it. I write about it now with some embarrassment, in the hope of encouraging women - perhaps of my own generation who know that they have no reason to be ashamed - to come forward and speak publicly about their experiences.
The Oireachtas Committee has failed women badly. Most of its members must know how this is likely to end. There will almost certainly be another X case, possibly even more pitiful than the first. The whole country will be up in arms demanding that the girl involved be allowed to have her pregnancy terminated. Many of them will say that yes, they voted against abortion but that this case is different.
In the absence of women's voices, the recommendations of the Oireachtas Committee reek of hypocrisy and evasion. Irish women deserve better.
The Irish Times November 23rd, 2000