Sir, - I wish to express my utter disgust at how the organisers of Women on Waves used the vulnerability and pain of women who are experiencing a crisis pregnancy for the sole purpose of gaining publicity for themselves.
They offered women a chemical abortion on board ship, saying they would dispense RU486, knowing all the time they were not in a position to do this.
Furthermore, in offering to administer this drug on board a makeshift clinic 12 miles off shore, they displayed a blatant disregard for women's safety and health. This drug, according to the manufacturers, is highly potent and should be administered only if the following conditions are in place: an ultrasound scanner; laboratory facilities (for assessing blood samples); adequate facilities for prostaglandin administration; adequate nursing and counselling staff; narcotic painkillers; cardiovascular monitoring conditions; emergency resuscitation medication and equipment; emergency theatre facilities.
It should also be administered only to women who are in good health, under 35 years of age, non-smokers, not more than 64 days pregnant, and not suffering from asthma, cardiovascular disease, epilepsy, kidney disease, liver disorder, allergies or pulmonary disorders.
All these conditions for a simple, safe procedure? What contingency plans had they in place if an emergency occurred The Trinity study on Women in Crisis Pregnancies found that the main reasons women opted for an abortion were lack of support and fear of disclosing the pregnancy. It follows that privacy would be of paramount importance to any woman seeking an abortion.
Women on Waves were guaranteeing any woman who went on board for an abortion that their privacy would be protected, but how would this have been achieved? The drug RU486 has to be administered in two visits 48 hours apart. First, three tablets of the drug must be ingested under close medical supervision and 48 hours later a prostaglandin must be administered, again under close supervision, after which the woman will abort.
Where were the women to go during this time? Would they be picked up, taken 12 miles off shore, given RU486 and then dropped back and collected the following day to complete the procedure? All this in the glare of publicity which Women on Waves had invited? Hardly the best way to go about preserving anonymity for those vulnerable women.
What are we to conclude from all this? Women on Waves is not an organisation that cares for women in crisis and neither is it concerned for women's health and safety. Rather it is willing to use the very women it says it wants to help in order to gain publicity and further its own agenda. - Yours, etc.,
Julia Heffernan, Public Relations Officer, Life Ireland, Patrick Street, Cork.