Feminists For Choice

As Ireland waits for a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights, controversy over abortion and women’s health in Ireland has become a hotspot for international scrutiny. According to the Human Rights Watch, Irish legislation, in which women who obtain an abortion are sentenced to life in prison, is putting women’s lives at risk. In addition, recent legislation banning abortion has been inspired by deliberate misinformation from rogue anti-choice agencies.

Women have been told they may become infertile, require a hysterectomy or possibly need a colostomy bag after an abortion by agencies that target women seeking advice about unwanted pregnancies, says the report.

“Women in need of abortion services should, as a matter of international law and human decency, be able to count on support from their government as they face a difficult situation,” said Marianne Mollmann, the women’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “But in Ireland they are actively stonewalled, stigmatised, and written out.”

According to the report, the government limits information about legal abortion services and has failed to crack down on false claims from “rogue” agencies masquerading as unwanted pregnancy support groups.

One 29-year-old woman was shown a video of ultrasound images and pictures of mothers by an agency called “British Alternatives”.

“[The woman] put a model of a small foetus in my hand … told me to name my baby, asked me how I would feel if I killed the baby,” she said.

Another woman described being harassed over the phone by a pro-life agency for weeks: “They would ask ‘Is your baby still alive? Have you killed it yet?’.”

It’s unfortunate that anti-choice deception has been so effective in influencing Irish legislation. Even worse, the Irish governments only response to this claim is that women should report incidents of misinformation to the authorities. Unfortunately, this assumes that women have access to the correct information to begin with.

Here’s to holding out for the European court of human rights to make the right decision. Over 4,600 Irish women have obtained abortions abroad in the UK alone. This seems to indicate that abortion is going to happen regardless of its legal status; the difference being cost and efficiency. In the status quo, legal barriers for Irish women seeking an abortion has only increased the propensity for complications and magnified the economic cost for women.