Review of abortion services needed to end 'heartbreak' for families, Soc Dem leader says

Vivienne Clarke

Holly Cairns, the leader of the Social Democrats party, has said that a review of abortion services was needed to end the heartbreak for families who needed to end a pregnancy for medical reasons.

The Social Democrats' bill, which will be introduced in the Dáil on Tuesday, is aimed at updating Ireland's abortion laws to ensure that women will no longer face a situation where they might have to travel abroad to terminate a pregnancy.

Cairns told RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show that she had spoken with the Taoiseach recently and said he recognised that there's "a massive issue here" and a gap in the legislation, and that people were suffering unnecessarily.

“But I was struck by one thing he said, and that was we need to allow people to be able to tell their stories, that that's really important to create that space, and I have to say I think we've heard enough of these stories," she said.

"It's so honourable that people come forward and tell these heartbreaking stories to try and ultimately protect somebody else from having to go through it.

“How many more people do we need to come forward and tell their stories of the suffering the heartbreak, the travel home, all of the different elements of it?

"So, I'm bringing forward this legislation to finally address that, and what TDs will be voting on is not do we want to allow this kind of an abortion service or not, it's do we want to continue to force women abroad to do it or not.

"That is actually the question we're dealing with, because when people need a termination for medical reasons they just have to go and get one, but you're making a deeply traumatic time even harder by forcing them abroad to do that.”

This was an issue that really needed to be addressed, she said. When people had voted to repeal the eighth amendment, included in that was that there would be a review of the legislation which had been carried out three years afterwards.

“It found that there are still so many issues with the legislation and I think we all remember the national debate that this country had on around the time of the repeal the eighth referendum.

"I know from canvassing during that campaign, from listening to radio programmes and television debates, a lot of people voted yes for those people who were forced to travel because they needed a termination for medical reasons.

“So many people voted yes because of those particular stories, and still today, years and years later, those women are still being forced to travel.

"These are some of the most heartbreaking stories and I was, like so many of your listeners I'm sure, really moved to hear Denise Whitmore speaking on your programme about her and her family's experience of this, but these are the pregnancies, the babies that are so wanted, that families are so excited about having, and then they get this devastating news.”