‘Despicable’: Harris’s anger as location of Ireland’s ‘first’ legal abortion leaked

The Health Minister has vowed to protect anyone seeking abortion after the details of the country's purported 'first' legal termination were shared on social media.

A post online at the weekend gave the location of where the abortion would supposedly be taking place. Minister Simon Harris said that women deserved respect and confidentiality in their abortion care.

“I find it extraordinarily unedifying. Any service that is provided legally in our country deserves to be treated with absolute respect and confidentiality of the patient must be to the fore," he told the press yesterday. "We will defend and protect any citizen accessing any health service, and the idea people would effectively try and incite harassment of women and health care staff through online discourse is despicable and offensive. “And I don’t think it’s any way reflective of how the large majority of the people in the country feel. “It’s an attempt to drag us back to pre-Repeal place and that’s one place we’re not being dragged back to."

The Minister also addressed concerns that the information came from a source within the HSE. “If the information has been leaked from our health service, that’s very, very serious and I have no doubt the HSE will act accordingly.” The Irish Family Planning Association last week issued a warning after a pro-life agency allegedly set up a website to "entrap" women seeking support.

WARNING. A notorious rogue anti-choice agency has set up a website called My Options and manipulated its Google listing to entrap women who need abortion care. To reach the HSE MyOptions helpline, the only number to call is 1800 828 010. The website is at https://t.co/fK2fOwgCXR.

— IFPA (@IrishFPA) January 3, 2019

Abortion services became available through GPs, family planning services and hospitals across the country at the beginning of the year.