Women here on other wavelength over abortion

From a media viewpoint, the Women on Waves initiative in Dublin was a non-event. What happens in Cork remains to be seen, but one could sense the frustration of foreign news crews, uneasily aware that they were going to have to file expenses claims on a non-story. There were no women undergoing abortions in the choppy waters of the Irish Sea, no clashes between militant pro-choicers and pro-lifers. So, instead of the promised sensationalist story, they had to film interviews in which calm and articulate people presented the pros and cons of the argument.

Which, ironically, reflects better the reality of the abortion debate in Ireland over the last few years. What the Women on Waves project did not seem to realise was that the debate here has moved far beyond the kind of controversy which they were trying to create. They appeared to think that they were coming to some backward, benighted country in need of a massive jolt into the 21st century. Instead, few countries in the world could point to such a calm, dignified exploration of the reality of abortion as happened during the All-Party Oireachtas Committee hearings. These were a credit to the committee. Contained within the detailed report is a way forward which is neither polarising nor sensationalist - that is, a commitment to reducing the numbers who feel compelled to choose abortion.

There was something extraordinarily dated about the rhetoric of reproductive rights and freedoms employed by the spokesmen and women for the abortion ship. That kind of ideology has few followers here. Those who are not completely anti-abortion speak of the hard cases, of what they would do if it were their sister or daughter, but few pretend that it is about rights and freedoms. They are too aware that in a crisis pregnancy all the choices are difficult and some are horrendous. Aside from a few diehard activists, most people admit abortion is a nasty business, and that they would not wish one on their worst enemy.

There is no doubt that during the 1980s many lined up on the pro-choice side simply because they could not contemplate ceding ground to what they perceived, rightly or wrongly, as reactionary Catholic forces. As the influence of the Catholic Church has waned, they no longer feel the need to wear a pro-choice badge as proof of commitment to progressiveness. They know, from the Irish research known as the Trinity study, that for women who have abortions, far from speaking of pro-choice, they present their decision as a case of no other choice.

During the past week some pro-choice spokesmen and women spoke of the hypocrisy of the fact that people had problems with going 12 miles out to sea to perform abortions while being able to turn a blind eye to the thousands of Irish women who go a few hundred miles off the island for abortions every year. In a way they are right. However, the conclusions that such pro-choice people draw is that it would be better to have abortions freely available in Irish maternity hospitals or Irish abortion clinics.

Unfortunately for the effectiveness of such an argument, the very ugliness of the container housing the operating theatre highlighted the dehumanising nature of abortion. Not quite on a par with a cattle boat, it none the less looked exactly the same as that used to load freight onto ships, and not fragile or valuable freight at that. We are sheltered from the ugliness of abortion by the fact that Irish women have their abortions in Britain. The container reminded us of the starkness of abortion, and that starkness is real whether the abortion happens in a British clinic with pretty floral curtains or in a container on a boat.

One of the saddest statements for me came from Alison Begas, chief executive of the Well Woman clinic. She was quoted in the Sunday Business Post as saying we are increasingly seeing young married women, many with good jobs and houses and maybe one or two children, who simply find that the pressure of Celtic Tiger Ireland is too great to allow them to have any more. They're under pressure in the office; they have pressures of commuting, of childcare. They feel compelled to have the abortion in order to stay afloat economically.

If ever there was a moment to shout stop, surely this is it. Young married women with good jobs and houses and a small family who feel compelled to have abortions in order to survive economically? We need no further evidence that our society has gone completely mad and that our priorities are skewed beyond belief. The answer for such women does not lie in herding them onto a boat for an abortion, whether it be the Aurora or a ferry to Holyhead. It lies in the Government tackling the housing markets to ease the crippling burden of mortgage repayments, in moving from rhetoric about family friendly workplaces to implementing real change. It lies in what was promised in the All-party Oireachtas Committee report - targeted, comprehensive research into the root causes of abortion and practical initiatives to offer women real choices.

Instead of the women described by Alison Begas meekly lying down on an operating table to have the life within them ended, we as a society need to stand up and shout that there has to be a better way. As Adrienne Rich, the feminist writer said, abortion is violence, a desperate violence inflicted upon a woman, first of all upon herself. To advocate abortion as a solution to anything is to endorse the use of violence. It may be violence sanitised as surgical or medical procedures, but it is violence none the less.

The sad thing is that the Women on Waves project sincerely believe that increased access to abortion represents real progress for women. Meanwhile, the debate has moved on here to looking at offering women real choices, to making abortion rare. Much of that is because of the courage of women who have spoken out and admitted that abortion was a disaster both physically and emotionally for them. We need to honour that courage by ending the rhetoric and offering real alternatives.

bobrien@irish-times.ie