A to Z of abortion
by Meadbh Gallagher
Post-liberal Ireland was walking down the street the other day.
It had just been declared and was full of itself. Quite
expansive. It was on top of things - willing to consider
anything, wishing to bestow compassion on everything.
A 13-year-old girl, raped, pregnant, stopped it in its tracks.
She needed an abortion it would not provide.
A trial began under the full glare of publicity. A jury of
millions was selected. Several of them, from all walks of life,
spoke publicly of their horror at the circumstances of the case.
Then they passed judgement, beyond all reasonable doubt in their
own minds.
The girl was committed to the biggest institution in the state to
determine her sentence. There, she was called `C' and assigned a
case number. She was but a shadow of herself.
In another place, she was being taken care of. Those charged with
her care belonged to another institution of the state. An
emergency meeting was proposed by its leading members, calling on
it to protect the life of the unborn in the girl's womb.
Days passed. Politicians spoke at length trying their best to say
nothing. Shocktroops led by a man in a four-wheel-drive jeep were
seen in the vicinity.
A group of people who once brought the state to court claiming
that welfare for unmarried mothers was depriving good families
of state funds were seen leading the shocktroops.
The issue was one of competing rights, observers said. The rights
of the parents, the child, the unborn, the Eastern Health Board,
the Children's Court, pressure groups, the media, the right to
privacy - all got a look in.
The belief in the right to rape was not brought into question.
Attitudes towards girls and women and children which led to rape
were not put on trial.
In 1992, a 14-year-old girl, raped, pregnant, was also brought to
the highest institutions in the state to determine her future.
That was shortly after liberal Ireland had been declared. It too
was stopped in its tracks.
Since then, at least 65,000 girls and women from Ireland have had
abortions in Britain. But the jury has not been troubled with
these cases.
Up to the 1970s, girls and women found with unwanted pregnancies
in Ireland were also committed to institutions in the state.
Another institution, the Church - both Catholic and Protestant
varieties of it - was charged with their care.
The methods were different but the bottom line was the same:
judgement was passed and the sentence of penal servitude in
places like the Magdalen laundries was served.
The right to control over girl's and women's bodies is the common
denominator between past and present. Though girls and women
daily assert their right to have abortions, daily too complete
strangers assert their right to pass judgement on them.
How many more cases will be hauled before the jury before it
realises it has no jurisdiction in this matter? How much of the
alphabet, how many case numbers?
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)