Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK which does not allow for abortion.
This afternoon a 21-year-old woman received a suspended sentence and was declared a criminal by her own country for procuring an abortion. She was 19 at the time when she bought abortion pills over the internet and induced a miscarriage.
Let me repeat that, she was 19 at the time. This 19-year-old woman who had been trying to save up money to travel to England for an abortion had to induce her own miscarriage in her own apartment.
I cannot even begin to imagine the trauma this woman has been through and yet here we are again, re-traumatising her by declaring her a criminal. She’s a criminal because she wanted control over her own autonomy. She’s a criminal because she did not wish to be pregnant and had the audacity to make a choice about her own body. She’s a criminal for making a choice in desperate circumstances.
How can we let this woman be declared a criminal by a 150 year old law? She was desperate and isolated. She had to use these measures because she was left with no other choice. We left her with none. What does that say about us as an island? We’re happy to sentence women for making a choice about their own lives?
According to this ruling, this woman is a criminal for making a choice about her bodily autonomy. Any time this woman goes for a job interview, she has to declare herself a criminal because she had an abortion. This woman must explain one of the most traumatising experiences of her life that, to a complete stranger. I’m not sure I would have the courage to tell my own mother, let alone a potential employer. Is that fair? Is that just? Are we supposed to have faith in a justice system that is happy to criminalise women when they’re at their most desperate and vulnerable?
As an island and as a population, we should be ashamed. The strict abortion laws that lie on each side of the border have claimed yet another victim. Another woman has been sacrificed in the public eye because we refuse to decriminalise and legislate for abortion. I’m angry and you should be too. This woman deserves our sympathy and our support because she was put in an impossible position.
Nobody should ever have to induce a miscarriage in their home because they’re left with no choice.
Nobody should ever be left without a choice.
