Sir, – Adoption has been mentioned in the debate in the context that women could have their babies adopted rather than aborted.
Adopted people should not be led to believe that the only reason they are alive is because of the presence of the Eighth Amendment.
I ask those that are canvassing for retaining the Eighth Amendment to refrain from assuming that all women that gave children for adoption would have opted for an abortion if it were legal to do so in this country.
It is a completely wrong assumption. – Yours, etc,
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GERALDINE GREGAN,
Clarecastle,
Co Clare.
Sir, – For far too long we have turned a blind eye to what is happening to our women, in our country.
We didn’t pause to think about the Eighth Amendment unless it affected us. No one likes to think about the realities of abortion, fatal foetal abnormalities, rape, incest.
We carry on with our lives, allowing our women to make harrowing journeys, adding to their considerable distress and suffering. England has picked up the pieces for our women for far too long.
I would appeal to the people who are in theory against abortion, to consider all the difficult, heartbreaking positions women have been in where they have made this choice.
The woman or child that was raped. The woman whose child has a fatal foetal abnormality. The woman in early pregnancy who needs to start chemotherapy immediately and who has other children at home. The woman who is at risk of suicide.
If you feel empathy for a woman in any of these situations, you need to vote to repeal the Eighth Amendment. Don’t add to her trauma by forcing her to travel at a time when she is most vulnerable.
Once the Eighth Amendment is repealed, then we can focus on legislation that will take everything into consideration.
We can come together and decide as a nation. We will be able to make changes to the legislation based on new medical advances as needed. We can focus on ensuring we have easy, free access to contraception. We can ensure we educate our youth on safe sex practices.
We can make sure we support all women. – Yours, etc,
A FURLONG,
New Ross,
Co Wexford.
Sir, – Now that the Dáil has clearly established the principle of freedom of conscience in relation to voting on putting an amendment to the people, may we expect that, in the event of a vote to introduce abortion, freedom of conscience will be provided for in the case of medical professionals tasked with carrying it out, and for that matter, will the same freedom be accorded to those tasked with incinerating the “byproduct”? – Yours, etc,
JIM SHINE,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – So Leo Varadkar wants abortion to be “rare”, and thinks that this is compatible with his proposed referendum and legislation?
He might look to Switzerland, the European country with the lowest abortion ratio among countries with legalised abortion. Despite intensive contraception education in Swiss schools, and intensive use of morning-after pills, the abortion ratio there (abortions per 1,000 live births) is still 120, approximately double the Irish ratio under the Eighth Amendment. And yes, I am including abortion pill estimates in the Irish figures.
If we follow the Swiss model, then post-repeal we can expect about 8,500 abortions in Ireland per year. That would not be most people’s idea of a rare occurrence. – Yours, etc,
JIM STACK,
Lismore,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – We know that the Eighth Amendment never stopped women from having abortions, it merely changed the location of Irish abortions and outsourced reproductive healthcare to overseas clinics. We know that every year thousands of Irish women travel for abortions in UK and other European clinics.
More than 160,000 made that journey since the Eighth Amendment was inserted in our Constitution. In recent years thousands of Irish women have purchased pills online and self-administered these to cause abortion.
While the Eighth Amendment has not stopped abortions, it has fostered an ethos of stigma, fear and humiliation.
For decades women travelled in secret, kept the trauma to themselves and received neither support nor sympathy from their country.
Latterly women using the abortion pill fear to seek medical help in case they are criminalised.
Is this how we want our society to continue to treat women and girls? Do we want a country where devastated parents, rape and incest victims, and women in crisis pregnancies are kicked out of Ireland to seek medical treatment and help from strangers? No parent wants a society in which young girls take pills and have abortions all alone without medical or emotional support.
I hope people will look at the real story of Irish abortions, think of the women and girls behind the statistics, consider the evidence given to the Citizens’ Assembly and the Joint Oireachtas Committee and bear in mind the medical and legal expert advice that it should be removed.
Behind the campaigning and the noise, every one of us knows someone who had an abortion even if we are unaware of this – mother, sister, friend, workmate.
We have in 2018 a unique chance to put an end to decades of suffering and secrecy, to stop punishing tragedy, to offer normal reproductive healthcare to Irishwomen in Ireland and to acknowledge that we can allow others to choose even if the choice is not our preference.
We can do this by voting to repeal the Eighth Amendment. – Yours, etc,
MARY BUCKLEY,
Foxrock,
Dublin 18.