Sir, – Mary Favier of Doctors for Choice (Opinion, February 25th) raises the absence of the voices of post-abortive Irish women at the recent Oireachtas hearings on abortion. As an Irish woman who had an abortion, I wish to raise a voice that is often ignored, that is the voice of the thousands of women who have been deeply hurt by their abortion.
I know from my own experience and from working with other women who have suffered after abortion that the grief is nearly always hidden.
There is no body, no funeral, no graveside, no family and friends to grieve your loss. I regularly meet women who are suffering serious mental trauma after an abortion. People in favour of abortion sometimes blame this on social, cultural or religious conditioning.
However, I have found the same suffering in many other countries where I have worked with post-abortive women.
I, and women like me, would be failing mothers, fathers, medical professionals, legislators, and society in general if we did not share our experience of abortion and how it impacted so negatively on our lives. We are not women crying over “products of conception”. We are crying over the loss of our babies, the children that will never sit at our dinner table, never have a birthday party or hold their own child.
Abortion damages women and ends the life of an unborn child. Women like me feel invisible in this debate and feel ignored by many of the women’s groups that are supposed to represent all women. The denial surrounding abortion regret is something that we need to deal with as a society and the voices of women who have experienced abortion and suffered as a result are voices that must be consulted as this debate continues. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Cardinal Brady said in his Christmas message that we should strive for “a society truly worthy of the dignity of the human person”.
I completely agree with him. We should be working for a society where someone’s personal choices are not up for national debate, where the Government does not get a say in what someone chooses to do with their body. A society that does not do this sounds remarkably like a fascist state to me.
And yet, here in Ireland that is exactly what we are doing. Our politicians and leaders of the Catholic Church are all commenting on how we cannot allow abortion on demand. Can I ask what is so wrong with that? Those commenting in the media seem to believe that by allowing abortion on demand, something which is in existence in just about every democratic country in the world, will open up the door for a constant stream of women having terminations. It is as if they expect women to go out on a weekend, have unprotected sex then go to an abortion clinic on a Monday morning and have an abortion. This seems like a remarkably fickle image of women, born of a chauvinistic society.
Abortion is not an easy decision. No person can enter into it lightly. By not allowing “abortion on demand” our politicians (a majority of whom are men) seem to be saying that women can not possibly make such a big decision, so let’s remove the responsibility. Let’s not let them worry their dainty little heads about it. It is as if you must tick every box on a check list in order to qualify: “At risk of suicide?” tick; “Been raped?” tick; “Foetus can’t exist outside the womb?” tick.
We don’t seem to trust that a woman can make up her own mind, her own choice for what she can do with her own body. In Ireland, you have to follow a list of stipulations before you’re allowed do that. There does not seem to be any dignity of the human person in that. – Yours, etc,