Termination or abortion - it's all about choice

There’s a lot of talk, yet again, in Ireland about TFMR – termination for medical reasons. People who have had the misfortune of having to go through this experience are writing blog posts and articles campaigning for new, proper legislation in Ireland to make the procedure legal, and opinion writers are producing powerful pieces in response to Ireland’s human rights record review in Geneva, begging for abortion to become a choice for all women, or if not that, at least in the case of TFMR.

There is no limit to my sympathy for those who have had to travel to another country in order to give birth to a baby that would never survive outside the womb, told by the powers that be that said horrifying experience would make them a criminal. I went through this while under the care of the NHS in the UK, and I think I would’ve burst out laughing if somebody had told me, at 21 weeks gestation, to keep walking around looking pregnant and answering well-intended questions about the due date, waiting for our baby to die. It is such a barbaric thing to ask of anyone that it seems absolutely ridiculous.

Yet: while I hated the word abortion, while I wanted everyone to know that we really didn’t have a choice, that we had planned the pregnancy and already loved this baby, this debate pains me. Campaigners are making the point so very clear: this is not an abortion; this is not about aborting an unwanted baby. They’re saying that if we can’t grant all women the right to choose, then we must at least grant it to these poor women – because this is different.

But is it different? Explain the difference to the woman forced to carry, give birth to and look after a baby she isn’t ready or able for.

This is only different if we don’t believe in choice, if we are happy to deny women the right to make decisions about their own bodies, if we accept that there is a limit to the amount of responsibility a woman is capable of carrying. If we legislate based on narrowly-defined criteria, suggesting that abortion is murder and criminal unless there is foolproof evidence that the baby is indeed already with certainty destined to die, we are still calling the shots, depriving women of bodily autonomy. In essence: we know better; they should do what they’re told.

It doesn’t matter how mind-numbingly nightmarish that experience was and how much I feel for every other couple that has the experience of an ultrasound scan turned into the most nerve-wracking, scary thing in the world; just because I can sympathise with them, that’s not to say that the decision of those whose experience I haven’t shared is any more straight-forward. We have to accept that if we value a woman’s right to make decisions about her body, that right has to last the whole way – and we have to trust her to be able to carry the responsibility for that decision, whatever that may be.

Some say that it’s a step-by-step process: if we legislate for TFMR now, people will get used to the idea, and some day, the rest will follow. I think, sadly, that those are the words of people who have given up on the possibility of Ireland ever legislating to support and empower women, instead settling for the second best. That’s a fight for sympathy and understanding – not choice. But a rhetoric that further demonises the informed, personal choice of having an abortion is not a step forward – it only plays into the hands of the pro-lifers, cementing the status quo.

Fuming with anger: on Irish political cowardice

I have just watched the video attached to this Guardian article about the increase in Irish women seeking help for abortions abroad, and I am beyond myself with anger, frustration and disbelief. I know that this is what happens in Ireland; I know that it’s inhumane and barbaric yet allowed to go on, but sometimes I forget. Sometimes I forget, and then an article like this comes along and I feel like taking the next ferry over to Dublin and knock on the door of every Fine Gael and Labour TD and tell them about Oliver and show them that there is no sense, no reason, no high-held religious principle that can justify what goes on.

I want every woman and every couple to have the right to free abortion with no questions asked, and I know that such a claim can sound both extreme and unrealistic in a climate like that in Ireland. But all subtle nuances and gestational distinctions put aside, how anyone can listen to these women who wanted so badly to be parents, who lost their children, who were given no choice and who without even blinking can say that they would have welcomed a disabled child with special needs had that been their lot, who were forced to go through their grief being judged by their own society, and say that the current abortion laws in Ireland make sense – that is, like these women say, just barbaric, inhumane and completely crazy.

When couples are given no choice, when they are told that their baby has a fatal abnormality, sticking our heads in the sand and saying that abortion is wrong because an embryo immediately after conception becomes an Irish citizen does not lead to a world where more women carry a dying foetus to term and we can go on with a clean conscience knowing that nobody’s been killed, let’s not pretend that that’s what’s happening. What these laws are saying is pretty clear: we can’t be bothered to take difficult debates about life and death, a couple’s right to choose and a woman’s right to control her own body, so we throw equality out the window and make it all about class.Under the current Fine Gael and Labour government in Ireland, and under all previous Irish governments, a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body is all about class.

The fundamental right, as such, does not exist – but you can buy it. I never quite got my head around Fine Gael’s ideological stance, but that something like this can go on in the name of a modern Labour party, that’s both ironic and a bit hard to stomach. Can you afford to travel abroad for your horrific procedure? Then go, have it done; just don’t do it on Irish soil. We don’t want your morally complicated grief here. Can’t afford it? Well there you go – your dying baby is a dying Irish citizen. Watch and feel it grow.