In anticipation of the March for Choice on September 28th, we are inviting our supporters to share what this year’s march means to them as part of our ‘Why I’m Marching’ blog series. Today’s post comes from Helen Stonehouse, who is a member of the ARC policy and advocacy working group.
If you would like to share why you’re marching, we would love to hear from you. Please send your written contributions (up to 700 words) or video entries (up to 1 minute, incl. captions) to media@abortionrights.ie, alongside a short introduction and picture of yourself, if you so choose. #ARCMarch19 #NoOneLeftBehind

Last year I marched while pregnant, this year I’ll march with my daughter.

Last year’s March for Choice was a strange one for me. The march itself was wonderful – I was volunteering as a steward and got to lead chants while walking alongside the crowd. I love the chance to berate the government with a megaphone. But it was also an exhausting day for me, as I was nine weeks pregnant. Early pregnancy is a crazy mix of tiredness, gnawing hunger and constant nausea – with a heady dose of emotions thrown in. I was so happy to be pregnant, but worried too – wanted pregnancies don’t always have happy endings. Societal norms dictate that we don’t share pregnancy news until 12 weeks (“just in case”), but hiding pregnancy, miscarriage or abortion just adds to the stigma around discussing women’s bodies and reproductive health.

Myself and my partner had waited until after the 8th was repealed to start our family, and we had been excited to tell close family and friends in the previous days and weeks. I knew that however my pregnancy went, I wanted those closest to us to know, so we would be supported no matter what. Marching alongside my referendum colleagues on that September day was an amazing celebration, yet I was completely worn out by the end.

In retrospect, I maybe should have pulled out of stewarding, but I don’t regret a moment of it. I was constantly hungry, and the smell of most foods made me feel queasy. But I did it, powered by Haribo, tea, joy and anger; joy for the huge change that had happened, and anger for everyone who’d been failed by our laws, too many of whom can’t be with us today. I knew that there were still people in 2018 facing a pregnancy they couldn’t continue, and they’d still have to travel or import pills. But I was hopeful that repealing the 8th would be a new day for reproductive rights in Ireland, and that no one else would have to make those decisions.

I watched as the post-repeal abortion legislation was debated, nausea fading and my belly growing bigger. I must admit, I was cynical from the start; I have never trusted politicians, and sadly, I was right. Legislation is one key piece of free, safe, legal, local access to abortion and our legislation isn’t good enough. Three day waiting periods, criminalisation of doctors, conscientious objection – the legislation is riddled with paternalistic and stigmatising barriers. Still, it was a start. As 2019 rolled in, abortion services were rolled out and we saw the impact of those barriers in reality – couples still travelling after receiving a devastating prenatal diagnosis, whole hospitals refusing to provide, anti-choice protesters outside GP surgeries, high costs for anyone without a PPSN, no free provision for our Northern siblings. With every passing day, my wriggling little parasite’s kicks grew stronger and every day I was grateful she was still in there, growing healthy and strong. Pregnancy is hard work – physically, emotionally and mentally draining, even without complications. I don’t think I understood so viscerally how important abortion was until I was pregnant. I was incredibly happy to be pregnant, but I would never force someone to remain pregnant against their will. And ultimately, that’s what being pro-choice means.

So why am I marching this year? Well, I’m looking forward to marching without feeling like throwing up. And I am beyond excited to bring my daughter to her first march at the grand old age of five months. I’ll be celebrating everything we’ve achieved in making Ireland a better place, particularly for my daughter’s generation. But just like last year, there are people across Ireland facing pregnancies they can’t continue, and our laws will fail them. I will not stop marching until free, safe, legal abortion is a reality across this island. This year I march for myself, for my daughter, and for everyone still awaiting reproductive justice.

“No one left behind” is the Abortion Rights Campaign’s (ARC) message as the grassroots movement for choice and change prepares to march on International Safe Abortion Day, 28th September, from the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm.

This is the first March for Choice since Ireland enacted abortion legislation. More than a year after 66.4 percent of people voted Yes to allow for abortion care in Ireland, abortion remains out of reach for too many people. ARC fights on for truly free, safe, legal and local abortion access for everyone on the island of Ireland.

“We hear from people in dire straits,” says Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network, “people who have just missed the 12 week-cut off, including people who couldn’t get a scanning appointment in time, who were led astray by rogue agencies, or whose medication abortion failed. We hear from people heartbroken by a diagnosis of catastrophic foetal abnormality, turned away by the Irish medical system. And we move heaven and earth to cater for migrants who need to travel to the UK or the Netherlands to access care.”

“When migrants and refugees arrive in Ireland, they may be too scared or disorientated to ask right away for an abortion,” says Bulelani Mfaco, spokesperson for the Migrants and Asylum Seekers Association of Ireland. “Once they pass the time limit, even if they have been raped, they have no legal access in Ireland, and face the daunting challenge of getting permission to travel for essential medical care.”

For people in Northern Ireland, change is on the horizon. If Stormont does not resume before 21st October, abortion will be decriminalised. “Within weeks we are hoping to see abortion decriminalised in Northern Ireland thanks to decades of campaigning and lobbying. We are currently the only part of these islands without free, safe and legal abortion access but that is going to change very soon,” said Danielle Roberts of Alliance for Choice Belfast.

“For these reasons and more, we march on Saturday the 28th September,” says Linda Kavanagh. “We call on the Government to end the mandatory three-day waiting period, to increase provision in every county, to end the unethical practice of refusal of care by healthcare providers, to stop rogue agencies, and to enact safe access zones around medical facilities as matters of urgency.”

“On Saturday 28th September, we will take to the streets once again to demand better, because the system created by our legislators is not what we voted for. Join us to ensure that no one is left behind.”

ENDS

Notes to editor:

Speakers at today’s press conference and photocall were:
Danielle Roberts from Alliance for Choice Belfast
Mara Clarke from Abortion Support Network (ASN)
Bulelani Mfaco from Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland (MASI)
Steph Hanlon from Carlow Choice and Equality Network
Linda Kavanagh from Abortion Rights Campaign

The March for Choice takes place at 2pm on Saturday 28th September. Gathering at 1:45pm for photos and leaving at 2pm

To mark the two year anniversary of Ireland repealing the 8th, we’re inviting you to write your own Repeal story. Did you canvass? Leaflet drop? Speak to family, friends or colleagues about why they should vote YES? Then tell your story – why you got involved, what it meant to you, your hopes for the future – even if it’s just to yourself. 

The vote on May 25th 2018 was not the end of our fight (not by a long way) but it was a momentous step in the struggle to achieve free, safe, legal and local abortion for all. The stories of those who contributed to this historic moment – however big or small – deserve to be told. We hope that sharing these stories will provide some inspiration in the uncertain time of COVID-19 and will renew our dedication to advancing reproductive freedom.

If you’d like some inspiration, check out this great video from Rebels4Choice and ARC Member Kathy D’Arcy, available here. 

Self care

Writing your story can bring up a lot of emotions. Kathy shares some tips on self-care below. You might also want to have a read of this blog post written in the aftermath of the referendum. 

1. If you feel really emotional and need a quick, simple way to calm down, try counting the rainbow:

Try to find three red things in your surroundings: name them out loud to yourself (i.e: “Red flower, red book, red car”). Now find three orange things, three yellow things, and keep going until you’ve named three things for each colour of the rainbow – turning indigo and violet into one because they are hard colours to find! This listing helps to lift you out of panic.

Another physiological technique I find helpful for panic is:

• Sit on a chair and really tense your legs as though you’re about to stand, even lifting off the chair a bit. Keep them tensed until they start feeling fatigued, but don’t hurt yourself!
• Relax back to your original sitting position over a slow count of twenty.

2. For when you’re calmer and just need a way to close a session or help you out of some difficult feelings and reaffirm yourself, there are some beautiful free yoga nidra meditations on the Yoga Nidra Network website https://www.yoganidranetwork.org/downloads that can really help you relax – I particularly like Uma’s.

If you need further support, you can contact an organisation like the Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.ie 

Want to share your story? 

If you have a Repeal story you’d like us to share as a blog post on our website or on social media, email it to: media@abortionrights.ie with ‘Repeal Story’ in the subject heading. Try to keep written stories under 800 words and videos (including captions) under 1 minute. Please feel free to include any pictures that you want to accompany your story! We will try to publish as many as possible. 

We will copy-edit stories to correct any typos. Sometimes, we may suggest more substantial edits (e.g. to remove identifying features of other people mentioned). These will be discussed with you prior to publication. 

G.K.

I was involved with Dún Laoghaire Repeal the 8th which subsequently became Dún Laoghaire together for yes. 

We first met in a local pro-choice pub in September 2016. I knew no one! But I was hooked. These whip smart, funny, challenging women had the most amazing energy. I could feel it in the air. I bounced home. And I never looked back. 

Our covenor was the indomitable Melisa Halpin (from people before profit). Truly one of the most inspirational women I’ve ever met. Nothing phased her, nothing ruffled her. She would take calls from constituents whilst managing 200 people on a canvas. She wouldn’t break a sweat! 

I feel the most incredible pride when I think of those months. We started knocking on doors in January and as the weather got warmer and momentum built we grew from 16 people to well over 200. We knocked on 50,000 doors. 

My favourite memory was the week before the referendum we gathered on the crossover bridge on the N11. Just beside Foxrock church. We held homemade signs and banners over the bridge. The beeps and cheers from the cars were loud enough to lift you off your feet. We all started crying. I will never forget the intensity of it  I still get goosebumps when I think of it. I knew that night, that we would win. 

I am not exaggerating when I say being part of Repeal changed my life. I feel so proud that I helped make Ireland a kinder place. A better place. My kids know that people power is real. 

I have never had a crisis pregnancy. I’ve never even had a pregnancy scare. I live a life of huge privilege and so do my kids. I dont know why the 8th affected me to the extent that I willingly neglected my family and my work for months. It was worth it though. Every single second, every tear, every roar of abuse, every second of fear. I would do it again in a heartbeat. 

It was the ordinary women of Ireland, mums, sisters, aunts, nieces. We are the women that repealed the 8th. 

Lyn Brookes – Leitrim ARC

I arrived in Ireland in October 2008 aged 48 years.  I had a hysterectomy at 33 so things like contraception and unexpectedly finding myself pregnant was not a concern I had.  Besides, I had lived in a country where contraception was free and available to all, I went on the pill at 17 and knew people that had, had abortions if they needed one, that is the right of everyone.  Right?  How wrong I was.

Every now and again, I would get invitations from Bernie Linnane to come to meetings of the Abortion Rights Campaign.   I really did think it was a bit odd and in the end, I said what is this all about?  So she told me you can’t have an abortion in Ireland.  It took a while for this to sink in.  I had heard vague things on the radio, Savita, a half-heard interview on the radio about a fatal anomaly and then the whole thing with a woman, clinically dead on life support who was pregnant, another woman who had been raped and was forced to stay pregnant until they took the baby out of her and kept it in the hospital.  I can remember thinking what the **** is going on here?   Things suddenly started to click into place.  I looked up the 8^th amendment.   What I saw there as a lay person left me cold.  Just a few lines …

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.

How could that be right?  How does an unborn have the same right to life as a living breathing woman?  It got worse; there was an insertion for the Protection of Life during Pregnancy which was supposed to have improved things.  That promised an abortion where there was a serious threat to the life of the woman, but it was only on the proviso that certain criteria were met.  

I remember sitting there, wondering if I was a doctor, how I would be able to know where this line was, the one between life and death.  It also carried a prison sentence of 14 years for any medic found negligent and causing the death of the foetus which had an equal right to life.  It dawned on me then that it was easier to let a woman die than to have to make that judgment call.  

I went on the canvassing training.  I looked around; the room was full of people, women and men.  There were three people from Roscommon, that was it. That county had not voted in favour of Equal Marriage and it wasn’t looking good if a referendum to repeal the 8^th was called.  

I read everything I could find about abortion rights, the cases that had gone on in Ireland in the past.  The more I read, the more I couldn’t believe how much shame and stigma women and girls had endured here.   

Together for Yes was launched soon after it was announced there would be a referendum.   We decided then and there that we were going to hit the ground running and start canvassing the minute the date of the referendum was disclosed.  

We were a bit nervous, this is a rural area, what would people say, what would people think?  The day we got banned from the village on the St Patricks Day parade was pretty awful.  The days that followed though, made us realise that we had support, however quiet it may be.  We decided to start canvassing straight away, it would be good to get going on it and hone our skills and by the time we were nearer the date, we would be much better at it too.

I told my partner not to expect to see much of me in the evenings for the next few months because I was going to be busy.  And we were busy.  Stalls, doorsteps, bridges, The Mart, Hoots for Yes, Cakes for Choice, debates, launches, radio interviews.  More and more people started to come out canvassing with us as the conversation normalised around abortion rights.   Even Roscommon got a huge canvassing team in the end.  When we first started, we had hardly any leaflets, so Bernie got a load printed so we could get going.  TFY had hardly any funds in the early days.  We were regularly asked when we would be putting up posters to counter the No side’s that had gone up almost overnight since the referendum was announced.  Soon, we said, we just need to get the funds. There was a crowdfund launched and people donated in their thousands.  We got our posters up, they got ripped down, we put them back up again. We swore, really well, we were the sweariest swearers that ever were, we got swearing down to a fine art. We were women and we were empowered by each other.  We would never be the same again, we will never go back in the box.

Losing the referendum was not an option.  We were ordinary people, not politicians; we were mostly women and some men with a message.  We told the truth, that’s all we did and people know when they are being told the truth

We watched the sun go down on the 8^th at Glencar Waterfall, and we hoped, no, we knew we had fucking done it.

Shauna

February 2018: My father-in-law is anti-choice. I definitively found this out this evening when I asked if he was registered and ready to vote yes for freedom to informed consent during pregnancy? His response?: I’m not having this conversation with you because I’m voting no. I asked why? And he said the usual: It’s not right kill a baby. I said, but I am my mother’s baby, What if the pregnancy could kill me? “Aaahhh, you’re twisting things now!”. I ask him what if me and your son were happily pregnant and received an FFA diagnosis at our 20-week scan? What if I was raped? He wouldn’t answer. Left the room. 

I am now sitting crying silently in the darkened bedroom in my father-in-law’s house. Feeling trapped and isolated. How do I begin to process this? My father-in-Law currently has more control over my body than I do. This is not ok. I do not know if I would ever choose abortion, but whether I would or not should be my decision to make. And what if, in a few years, we become pregnant and can’t continue for whatever reason. How am I supposed to continue knowing he thinks I killed my baby? A very much wanted baby. This is not something I could look past. 

Two long days later as we’re preparing to make the long drive home, my father-in-law comes to me and says; my son spoke to me yesterday, and I’ve decided to vote yes. For you and for him, for the just-in-case.

Unbeknownst to me, my partner had overheard the conversation between myself and his dad. He had heard me quietly crying in his childhood bedroom and decided to speak to his dad. It was only when his dad could see how his no could affect his son, did he realise how his no could add to the pain, while his yes could maybe somehow ease the pain by allowing us to choose how we might deal with our crisis. 

Conversations like this all over our country are what led to a collective yes. A collective response to look after our own here, on our shores. 

My name is Shauna and I marched, canvassed, and campaigned for Repeal of  the 8th Amendment. It was one of the hardest yet most rewarding things I have ever done. 

Thank you to all the others who  worked tirelessly for the right to choose. 

Bernie Linnane – Leitrim ARC

On a chilly November afternoon, in 2012, I stood among a small crowd in Sligo. We had gathered to protest, to express our anger, our anguish at the senseless death of Savita Halappanavar, which had occurred a month earlier. Similar vigils and marches were taking place all over the country as people took to the streets to give voice to their rage, their frustration, their shame at the tragedy which had taken place in Galway. We didn’t know what else to do, so we stood together, holding candles, trying to light the darkness we all felt had descended upon us.

Recently, I looked at newspaper pictures of that day in Sligo. Today, I recognise many of the faces of the people who came together to try and make sense of what had happened. Some of them have since become firm friends. Some are my much-admired heroes. Some are both. All are imprinted on my memory of what was, for me and for so many others, a pivotal moment. That was the day we decided there would be no more tragedies, no more deaths caused by the Eighth Amendment. No more Savitas. Never again.

I was 51 in 2012. It was not my first vigil. Not my first march. I had been out on the streets in 1983, campaigning against the push to insert the Eighth into our constitution. I had been out again in 1992, when the horror of the X-Case become known – a 14 year-old child effectively imprisoned by our state because she had been made pregnant by rape. Sometimes I look back at those days and wonder how we let that go by without burning the whole establishment down. I wonder how all those women, those girls, whose names we were never allowed to know, but who became part of our shared national shame under letters of the alphabet, were permitted to suffer while we pretended holy, Catholic Ireland was a real place and not just a figment of some warped, fundamentalist, collective imagination. 

Everything changed with the death of Savita. I was old enough to be her mother. I had a daughter of my own and could hardly bear to think about the torment Savita’s mother must have been enduring, while we stood, impotently, holding candles and pictures of her beautiful girl. I felt sadder that day than I had been in years. I cried tears of grief for a woman I had never known and for the daughter she had lost. I felt the sting of bitter indignation and frustration at the way women in our country had, for all my adult life, been consigned to a fate of suffering, even death, by a system which regarded them as little more than vessels to produce offspring. I went home that evening and knew that I could not, would not, rest while our laws reduced my daughter to no more than her reproductive organs, denying her agency over her own body, which was to be used as the state saw fit, even against her will. My tears gave way to rage. I got angry. I was not alone.

In May of 2018, I stood at Glencar Waterfall, one of the loveliest and most special places in Lovely Leitrim, again holding a picture of Savita Halappanavar. Her beautiful face had become a talisman by now, an evocative image that conjured up feelings of sadness and loss but also resolve and determination to change the system which had robbed her of life. Around me stood the people of the Leitrim and Sligo Together for Yes groups, who had campaigned tirelessly in the run up to the referendum vote which was to take place the following morning. We stood in a circle, with candles at our feet, holding placards bearing the names of women who had been harmed by the Eighth Amendment and by our country’s harsh and uncaring regime. Just one placard bore a picture. No name was necessary. 

Some of the people who stood at Glencar that evening had stood together before, at the Sligo vigil in November 2012. All of them stood for what was right, what was just and what was fair for the women and pregnant people of Ireland. This time our candles lit the darkness as the sun went down on the most hated Eighth Amendment. Never again.

24th May 2021

On the third anniversary of the repeal of the 8th Amendment, the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) highlights the promises broken by the Minister of Health on abortion, including commissioning an independent review of the law and ensuring accessible care at home.

“During the parliamentary debates on the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, then-Minister of Health Simon Harris promised that the review would be “external and independent [and] not be an in-house job”, said Ms JoAnne Neary, spokesperson for ARC. “He also committed to listening to patients, doctors and women’s advocacy groups, to looking at the operation of the Act in full and making decisions based on research. He specifically put it on record in the Dáil that the Oireachtas Health Committee should approve the terms of reference for the review, so that any successor would have to explain why they are changing their mind on that if they tried to depart from what the government promised.”

“The purpose of the review should be to evaluate the operation of the Act, with a view to improving access to abortion and ensuring that services are available to all who need or want them; and those services must meet the needs of all patients. Advances such as the use of telemedicine, which is working well, should be retained. ARC believe that Ireland’s abortion law should reflect international human rights and health standards, just as former Minister Harris promised it would,” said Ms Neary.

Current Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly supported these commitments in 2018, yet he is now failing to uphold his own promises as well as those of his government colleagues. Ms. Neary added, “The government has indicated that the review will not be external or independent, and to date, there is no sign of any meaningful engagement with the Oireachtas Health Committee or with patients, patient advocates, providers and relevant professionals. We cannot stand over a toothless, “tick-box” exercise conducted internally by the Department of Health, which will miss the opportunity to address the real failures in the current system.”

These failures are many. “When campaigning to repeal the 8th, politicians promised Repeal would mean an end to people needing to travel for abortion. Yet, almost 400 residents of Ireland had to travel to England or Wales for abortion care in 2019 because of barriers in the law and in provision in Ireland,” said Ms Neary. “While statistics are not yet available for 2020, testimony from the Abortion Support Network indicates that many people have had to scale colossal hurdles to access abortion during the pandemic — people who were forced to travel overseas at the very time when the Government was telling us to stay within 5km of our homes.”

“We were promised abortion care would be widely available; in reality half of the maternity hospitals in the State still do not provide abortion care and many rural regions lack community provision. We were promised legislation to establish Safe Access Zones to prevent harassment and intimidation around hospitals and doctors’ surgeries, yet this has not even been introduced. We were promised regulation of deceptive rogue agencies that misinform in order to dissuade individuals from getting an abortion. At what point does a series of broken promises become a string of lies? The review is an opportunity to create the gold-standard of free, safe, legal and local abortion access. In 2018, 66.4% of voters chose care and compassion over shame and stigma. It is time for the government to stop lying, to deliver on its promises, and to make abortion care available for everyone who needs it.” said Neary.

-ENDS–

For more information, see our blog posts on the first year of legal abortion and the need for care at home after failed abortion.

To mark the fourth anniversary of Ireland repealing the 8th, we’re inviting you to share your hopes for the outcome of the review of the operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018. What improvements are needed to ensure abortion services meet the standard of international medical best practice? What still needs to happen to make abortion services free, safe, legal, and local for everyone who wants or needs them? 

On May 25th 2018, the vote was not the end of our fight. Repealing the 8th was only ever the beginning. As we see the rolling back of hard-worn reproductive rights in America, Poland and other countries, we know that we have to fight to defend the restrictive abortion access that we currently have and expand access to abortion services. With the review, we have the opportunity to fix the issues within the legislation and make abortions available for everyone who wants or needs them.

Self-care

It’s not easy being an activist, a person who can become pregnant or part of the LGBTQI+ community at the moment. While it is important we keep our voices in the public, that doesn’t always have to be your voice. If this is not good for you to do right now, please look after yourself first. 

Want to share your story? 

If you have a “What I want from the review” story you’d like us to share as a blog post on our website or social media, email it to: media@abortionrights.ie with ‘Review Story’ in the subject heading. Keep written stories under 800 words and videos (including captions) under 1 minute. Please feel free to include pictures to accompany your story! We will try to publish as many as possible. 

We will copy-edit stories to correct any typos. Sometimes, we may suggest more substantial edits (e.g. to remove identifying features of other people mentioned). These will be discussed with you before publication.

Today marks 4 years since a majority of people in Ireland voted to repeal the 8th amendment. 4 years since politicians spoke of the “Irish solution to an Irish problem” and about how utterly appalling it was that we were forcing people to travel out of Ireland for healthcare. Yet, 4 years later, we are still forcing people to travel for abortion care. 

“While thousands of people have been able to access abortion care here, at home, since 2019, our legislation is full of medically unnecessary barriers,” said ARC co-convener Darina Murray

Four years on, four persistent barriers to access:

Lack of local provision

“There are gaps in abortion provision, which disproportionally affect people living in rural Ireland, disabled people, working-class people, migrants, and people living in direct provision. Our research shows that people need to travel for 4-6 hours for abortion care, particularly those living in rural areas. This is significantly longer than they usually travel for healthcare appointments.”

Unnecessary, paternalistic waiting period

“Once your appointment is made, you face the mandatory 3-day waiting period between your first and second appointments. It is 2022, yet we still do not trust pregnant people to know what is best for them. The 3-day wait is nothing more than paternalistic nonsense, which the World Health Organization states “can jeopardise women’s ability to access safe, legal abortion services and demean women as competent decision-makers.” 

Lack of safe access zones

Ms Murray continued, “Nine out of our 19 maternity hospitals and maternity units still do not provide full abortion services, and only one in 10 GPs are abortion providers. This is a damning consequence of refusal of care (‘conscientious objection’), the chilling effect caused by the criminalisation of doctors who perform abortions outside the limited terms of the legislation, and the lack of safe access zones to prevent the harassment of people accessing medical services and healthcare providers. When we said we wanted free, safe, legal, local and accessible abortions, the local part was not an added extra. Local access is vital to ensure that people can have the abortions they need when they need them.”

“Our restrictive legislation means that many people are still forced to leave the country for abortions. Since 2019 Abortion Support Network has funded 179 clients from Ireland, who were failed by our abortion law. This is not what people voted for in 2018.”

Restrictions leading to denial of care

“We also know that in instances where abortion pills have failed, and a person’s pregnancy has passed the 12-week on request limit, they cannot complete their abortion in Ireland unless they meet the criteria for an abortion post 12 weeks. Abortion pills are safe and effective, but like other medications, they fail about 2% of the time. Abortion Support Network has supported at least 50 people travel after a failed early medical abortion. This failure to complete abortions that were started in Ireland under the care of doctors is essentially state-sponsored medical negligence.” 

Ms Murray added, “As we look at the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S., we must see it as part of a global push to roll back hard-won reproductive freedoms. Ireland made international headlines when we overturned our constitutional ban on abortion in 2018. With our legislative review, we have the opportunity to improve access to abortions and to ensure that abortion care is fully integrated into our healthcare system, as it should have been from the beginning.”

Ms Murray concluded, “Abortions must be available on request throughout pregnancy for everyone. Pregnant people must be able to have abortions as early as possible and as late as necessary. Anything less leaves far too many people behind and denies pregnant people their reproductive rights.”