I remember asking my mom why were woman handcuffing themselves to the Dail and what abortion was. All I got for an answer was a shush

A sign of how backwards Ireland still is. At the end if the day its a choice and that should rest solely with the individual.

The fact is that Irish politicians have always been too yellow to deal with this because they are too terrified of being picked on by the religious taliban and the various right wing ‘pro life’ militias that threaten and shout abuse louder than everyone else. Then there’s the political price, most TD’s put their own election chances ahead of sorting out the abysmal state of Irish abortion laws and with many of them coming from rural, religious invested backwaters they are always going to play the parish pump politician before the national need for clearer and equal rights of Irish women to information and access to abortion services be it in Ireland or elsewhere. The Irish constitution is an outdated and regressive document well past it sell by date and not fit for purpose, it was written at a time when Ireland was under the control of men who were both ultra conservative in their views of women’s rights and slavishly deferential to a religion which hates women anyway and whose thought processes are firmly stuck in the middle ages. The constitution needs rewriting and the politicians need to grow some balls and deal with this. It is a disgrace that it has taken so long to act on the earlier cases back in the 90′s and before the ‘righteous’ on here start their usual blathering about the unborn’s right to life etc just bear in mind the way this country treated the ‘already born’ that it was supposed to look after, the orphans and abandoned, the children of and the unmarried mothers, the mentally ill and disabled children who were dumped in the various state and religious run gulags by members of their own families. The shocking and sickening track record of Ireland and the Irish for mis-treating it’s own vulnerable and the ‘blind eye’ culture which many in Irish society conveniently used to bury their heads in the sand must not be allowed to derail progress towards the rights of Irish women to choose their own solutions when it comes to unwanted pregnancies. It’s not down to the state to deny women their human rights in making the choices that are best suited to them and their future.

the right to life of the unborn is a strong arguement but in certain situations surely the rights of a victim of abuse/ incest and rape far out anything else.

I wish this country would face up to the realities of real life. Over 4000 women felt they had no recourse but to go to the UK and have an abortion (and they’re just the ones that don’t lie about their address). If there were abortion services here, I truly believe in my heart that number would drop. I imagine there’s some women who after spending the money to go to the UK, booking in to the clinic etc find that they’ve no option but to go through with it. What if you could go to Galway or Limerick, rather than London or Manchester it would ease the stress and pressure, both financial and emotional. It gives you a little extra time to think things through rather than the knee-jerk reaction of having to to the UK, it might be the breathing space you need to fully weigh up the options and decide to not go through with it. But if you do, then there’s support and back up available at home, rather than further isolation on your return because “there’s no abortion in Catholic Ireland”.

Finally I hope, after all she went through, Miss X has found contentment and happiness in her life.

jesus this makes me so angry, bloody catholic church and their hold over everything…

Mark opinions like yours are like penises, they are okay to have, they are even okay to be proud of, but you shouldn’t wave it around in public or force it down anyones throat.

It is simply shocking how backwards we are on this issue. I think any claim on morality the catholic church claims to have can be easily dismissed. Potential for life is not the same as life. a ball of non sentient cells should never get predence over a living being with actual existence

That legislation is so far past due that it’s criminal. Easy for the government to toss it to a referendum all those years ago- when today all the want to do is avoid the concept.

The fact that people still think a raped fourteen year old shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion disgusts me. What a sad hambles of a country. Our concepts of family, children and moral correctness is sometimes so very, very skewed.

to matthew can i ask what should be done to the pig whom murdered that little girls innocence? A medal??????

to sinead: i dont think she did travel? or had a miscarriage it was to late even though you correct ..it was reported at the time she did…. i dont think the reports were correct…. it was merely to dampen the masses…..that girl had round the clock garda protection due to what happened to her ……….she was treated as if she was the criminal… at 14 ……..not old enough to vote, get the dole or basically be counted at all

Welcome to Ireland where we pay great lip service to the concept of family and our love of children. Where draconian law will force rape victims to bear the children of thir rapists and then give them no further support whatsoever thereafter. Where 4,000 ordinary women face a traumatic journey abroad every year so that we can maintain our farcical pose as a country that gives a damn about any of its citizens.

Making abortion illegal does not make it any less common, it just makes it less safe. Not even in the historical back street abortionist sense, but in a psychological sense. It is a disgrace that girls whoa are already going through a traumatic experience have the added issue of travelling to a different country because of the abject failure of their own to legislate for these instances.

It’s a disgrace there has been no major changes since the case.

As for the terms Pro-life and pro-choice, they really need to be assessed.

I’m pro-choice, however I’m not anti-life.

And some pro-lifers worldwide need to live up to their title and maybe not kill doctors who perform abortions.

Where are the pro-lifers when it comes to issues like America’s Foreign Policy etc. where thousands of children have been killed in the the past decades.

How many on here have actually had to have an abortion or understand what it’s like to be in the position of not just an unwanted pregnancy but an unwanted pregnancy after unwanted sex? Abortion should be legal. It should be done,at the latest,by 2 months. It should not be used as a contraceptive.
Some of these opinions are so self righteous and closed minded. For the men who are anti abortion,if your mother/sister/wife/daughter were brutally raped by one or more men,then became pregnant and you watched them fall apart emotionally,would you tell them they had no right to free their body and get help? For the women on here who are anti abortion,same question but aimed at you yourselves.
If you don’t like it,don’t do it,but do
Not think that you have the right to take away other people’s rights

Pro-choice. No one has a right to tell you what you can or can’t do with your own body. Least of all our lying thieving government

The attorney general harry whelehan who was involved in the original judgement preventing the child and her parents.from traveling was the same age who was involved in the failure to extradite that scumbag brendan smyth. Although he later said he regretted his original judgement in the xx case because of the distress it caused the girl involved its a pity he didn’t look at the bigger picture at the time. And also a pity he didn’t extradite a serial paedophile. It would seem that the perpetrator gets more protection than the victim.

A simple suggestion for those of you opposed to abortion – Don’t have one! Providing abortion facilities in Ireland won’t change anyone’s mind. If you’re against it, you’ll keep that mindset whether there’s a clinic in Dublin, or Ballydehob.

I’m being honest by saying I’d prefer women didn’t have abortions, but I vehemently support any Irish woman’s right to make that choice for herself and to have one in a medically safe environment in this country.

I think you are right to point about the flawed terminology. The implication by calling the anti abortion status “pro-life” is to imply pro-choice people are anti-life, which is clearly not the case., I would argue that the inverse is true. Pro-lifers care more about saving a bunch of cells then the mother and how having the child might affect her life. And please, do not say she should have thought about contraception or some other distinctly anti compassionate sentiment because anyone who thinks abortion is the preferred method of contraception for women is not worth engaging.

The entire pro-life (should really be called anti-choice) is so imbued with fundamental Christian dogma I am genuinely horrified that it is still allowed an equal status in the argument. We can never allow religion to dictate policy again. That needs to start be offering a service sought by 4k + women, tax paying, citizens of the state, the facility in their own country.

In relation to both the X & C cases here in Ireland both rapists were released from prison & one of them went on to re-offend by raping an elderly lady, where is the justice in that?

@ Marion,

When did anybody say children that were conceived by rape were monsters? Or that they had no right to exist. Nobody. Typical dogmatic pro-lifers, force opinions and words on to people. No rather I was attempting to highlight the fact that women have choices, private choices, about whether or not they are ready for motherhood, and this does not mean that because they decide they are not they should be forced to carry on the pregnancy and give the child up for adoption. Where is the women’s right in all this?

Any to return to my earlier point, it is totally irrelevant what you or me or anyone thinks. What matters, whether or not we legislate for it, is that this is something 4k + women do every year. We are failing our citizens.

to brian……….. I know of case where a man stopped his ex wife from impregnanting herself with from frozen embryo as she wanted him to pay maintance too but he went to court an stopped it

some of these posts are as long as the article.

What about the harm to the Unborn from Drug & Alcohol Use in Pregnancy ? Is it ok to protect the ‘life’ but for a child to be born with life long brain injury from the toxic affect of Alcohol ?

Just something to bear in mind when it comes to abortion and pro-choice/ it’s my body argument. In a case like the X case I can see the reasonable grounds for her wanting an abortion not just because of her age but also because of the circumstances. Something like that I could support however I’m always uneasy when it comes to consensual sex and any unplanned pregnancy that arises. There are plenty of contraceptive options nowadays available to both sex’s as well as the availability of the morning after pill from chemists so it’s not like we are living back in the 60′s. There is a certain responsibility on people when it comes to sex and the immediate aftermath so if someone finds out 2 months later that they are pregnant because they couldn’t be bothered taking the most basic precautions then why should the child suffer for it. The argument that “it’s my body2 doesn’t hold true as there are now 2 living organisms sharing the one body, that is a simple medical and irrefutable fact. As to whether the fetus is sentient or not is still a matter for fierce debate and TBH I am still unsure on that one. I refer to the medical side of things only and not any religious diktat.

If women do not want a child then why not have it adopted? There are people crying out for children to adopt in this country. They are even going abroad to try to get them, yet we have people going to England to have an abortion. The stigma of having a child out of wedlock is long gone so why not give the child a chance at life? There is also the fact that while the woman may not want the child what about the rights of the father? Does he have any say in the matter? How long will it be before an injunction is taken out by a man to stop a woman aborting a child that he fathered? Now that will really put the cat among the pigeons.

I think that if a woman is determined to have an abortion then I think that it should be provided in Ireland as the journey to England only adds to what is an extremely traumatic time. I would however like to see more of an emphasis on the adoption option being provided, not in a coercive way a la the Catholic Church but more as a way of saying that abortion isn’t the only route available.

Did Miss x get an abortion in the end?

Very good article from the journal – I’ve done a history of the Irish government action on the case and similar amendments if you’re interested. http://goo.gl/JeO5e

@ Oaklane 1, rather than reiterate what I have already replied below I have copied for you as I believe the point in salient. Marion, below, talks about a woman who had an abortion after a rape, and who now 30 years later having come to terms with the rape, regrets the abortion. Please consider the points I raised when you talk about “Killing human life” (a preposterous statement) , and “the choice of the baby” (another equally preposterous term when referring to an insentient group of cells)

I said, “I am sorry Marion, you say it took this woman 3 decades to come to terms with the rape, to make peace with it. So lets suppose she had had the child, would it have taken her 3 decades to come to terms with him or her, 30 plus years before she could accept the child who was the product of a rape? Clearly she would not have been in the position, mentally, emotionally and perhaps even physically, to raise a child. That is no life for any child. Pro lifers are so stuck on pregnancy they forget that the child is for life. And if you can’t offer them a good, stable and well loved life, than you should really think twice about having one. That is the humane thing to do. Not force someone to have a child so that they satisfy ones own dogmatic views about the right to life. Well I also believe that the child has a right to a good life. And if a woman does not feel she can give that, for whatever reason, that is her private choice”.

I can´t believe that Miss X was going to be forced to a lifetime of parenting while her rapist only got 3 years for abusing a child! Come on 14 years old and expected to give birth to a child born of rape, I have given birth and I just don´t think a wee girl of 14 should have to. I find it is totally sick that a group of grown men sat around and decided she should not have access to her own choice – she was raped and then raped again by the courts. As someone said before she was treated like a criminal. What about the most recent case of that Indian woman who died in Galway after being denied an abortion? Or the 12 woman a day (4300 woman a year) who feel they don´t want to be mothers to unwanted children – do we tell them, sorry love but you have to be a parent now. How many single mother families in Ireland – too many I think! And come to think of it how many fathers are forced to support children they never wanted? None or at most very few.

Having spoken with two rape victims last year one opted for abortion the other did not. The victim who decided to abort explained that three decades after this heinous crime was committed to a large degree she had came to terms with it. ‘Time can be a healer’ she said. But every single year when the baby’s due date comes she becomes very emotional. Abortion can never undo the trauma of a rape but can only add to the sufferings, in reference to men 90% of the profiteers in the abortion industry are actually male.

what has the x factor got to do with all this .

As awful as the circumstances in this case were, abortion is murder, no matter how you disguise it, it should never be allowed under any circumstances.

Did the original girl end up having the child then?