by Martina Devlin
Date: 10 September 2009
Source: The Irish Independent
Martina Devlin was having a tooth drilled when a listener's email was read out on Today FM which was playing in the background. A 28-year-old single Irishwoman explained why she flew to England for an abortion, what happened during that day, and how she felt in the aftermath. She described fainting in the airport as she waited five hours for her return flight to Ireland, and the guilt, shame and secrecy, which added their weight to this daunting experience. If the procedure had been available at home, it would have taken two hours. Instead she caught two flights, underwent an 18-hour day and endured the experience on her own because of the stigma attached to abortion, which remains illegal in Ireland. Her conclusion was that women should not be obliged to travel to another jurisdiction if they decide against continuing with a pregnancy; that the State is shirking its duty towards living citizens as opposed to unborn ones by denying them the option of a termination on home ground.
All three women in that dental surgery were riveted: the dentist, her assistant and Devlin. Motherhood is venerated in Ireland yet even within this context, it seems excessive that laws make motherhood compulsory. In previous years there were DIY abortions, sometimes with disastrous results. More recently, Irish women go to Britain for terminations. Politicians find this convenient, since it saves them from the furore that would be stirred up by legislating for abortion. Tearful, scared and often alone, these women deal with their pregnancies in circumstances made more distressing by an unwillingness to accept that abortions happen, whether they are legalised or not. The abortion debate is coming to the fore again because it is being mobilised in the anti-Lisbon campaign. European law cannot impose abortion if the Lisbon Treaty is passed, but protesters suggest that ratifying the treaty will bring about backdoor admission to abortion. Meanwhile, thousands of Irish women go to Britain to have their abortions, and the Irish State looks the other way.
