Secrecy, shame and stigma of abortion: The women abandoned by Ireland
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By Anna Freeman
Irish citizens will go to the polls on May 25 to vote on whether to repeal the country's Eighth Amendment, which gives equal legal right to life to a mother and an unborn fetus. Meet the women who have been failed by this archaic law
*Cathy, from rural Ireland, was 28 years old when she fell pregnant after a faulty condom broke. She had been dating her partner - who had become increasingly verbally abusive - for just six months. The couple were not ready to have a child and booked a flight to London for Cathy to have an abortion. ‘I didn’t want to be attached to this man I didn’t know very well; a man who was angry that I had even involved him in the pregnancy at all,’ Cathy tells me. ‘No one was looking out for me. No one supported me. I felt abandoned and degraded by the world - and Ireland.’
Cathy can recall the 50-minute journey across the Irish Sea vividly. She trained to become a midwife at St. George’s Hospital in Wandsworth, London, as a student and had incredibly positive memories of the UK capital. But this journey 14 years ago marked an entirely different - yet pivotal - moment in her life. Once on English soil, Cathy visited a Marie Stopes abortion clinic alone because her partner refused to join her.
The procedure was painful; but the emotional toil was worse. She returned to Ireland in severe pain, too afraid to go to the doctor for a medical check-up. At the same time, her partner became physically abusive and started repeatedly hitting her in the stomach. Cathy left him - the only person who, at that time, knew the ordeal she had been through.
‘I have never felt more alone than in that moment,’ Cathy says while sobbing on the phone. ‘I never thought I would get pregnant and have an abortion. I have dedicated my career to helping women bring life into this world. I felt guilty. I was so angry. It tore me apart. I still don’t regret having an abortion to this day - it was the right thing for me - but I haven’t been able to move on because of the stigma. The silence. Being called a murderer by my fellow Irish citizens.’
