Since the dawn of time women have sought to end some pregnancies by abortion
27 February 2006
Abortion was the most commonly used form of family planning in the former Soviet Union and many of its satellite countries. For socio-economic reasons, especially shortage of living space in the cities, it was possible for couples to have only one or two children. Lack of family planning facilities meant that women in these countries frequently had many abortions—I read once that seven was about average in a woman’s lifetime.
When I attended the Cairo Conference on Population and Development in 1994, I met some doctors from Russia who were determined to address this issue. Recent reports suggest that the abortion rates have indeed been reduced due to a greater availability of condoms, the contraceptive pill and so forth, not to mind a bit more information on women’s fertility. By the way, some of us here could do with a bit more information on family planning practicalities, too—when I came home from Cairo and told a colleague that the Russian doctors had complained that the condoms in Russia had melted, he said he was very surprised because he thought Russia was a cold country!
At a meeting in Riga recently, women from the Baltic States were reporting big decreases in abortion rates, too. When those from Estonia said there were now more live births in Estonia than abortions, it made me realise how bad the situation regarding family planning facilities used to be. No one, no matter how he or she feels morally or ethically about abortion can want women subjected to repeated abortions.
There were some women at the Riga meeting who had alarming tales to tell. Poland relied on legal abortion as well to a great extent for family planning but twelve years ago legislation was brought in there to limit the reasons for abortion. Apparently it is very difficult for women, even those with reasons for a legal abortion, to obtain one. Many women are now having illegal abortions with fatal results in some cases. Some are done by doctors or other medically qualified personnel, some by people with no medical training.
Reading Ray Kavanagh’s book on Nurse Cadden, a lady who lived in Hume Street for many years and had a practice in which abortion was one of the services provided, was interesting. He touched on the stories of some others who provided abortion in Dublin and explained that women went to England for abortions too, even though the procedure was illegal there in most cases. Nurse Cadden’s career came to a halt when she was an old woman and a young woman on whom she was performing an abortion died of an air embolus.
Since the dawn of time and all over the world some women have sought to end some pregnancies by abortion. Ireland is, nor was, very different, although infanticide may have been more widespread here than we would like to admit. If Irish women did not go to England and other places, we like Poland, would have illegal abortion. How many deaths of Irish women each year would we be prepared to accept? Of course, abortion is always fatal for the foetus but it can be fatal for the woman, too. Would we accept four deaths? Would we accept six? About half a million women die each year world wide of conditions associated with pregnancy or childbirth and about a quarter of these deaths are associated with abortion, almost always illegal.
The Crisis Pregnancy Agency has done much useful work in the four years it has been in existence by commissioning research which will give us a greater understanding as to why some women feel they cannot continue with a pregnancy and resort to abortion. By pointing out how frequently single parents live in poverty and the impact of the fear of such poverty on a young woman’s decision I feel the Agency has already encouraged the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mr Séamus Brennan to replace the one-parent family benefit with a new child benefit scheme. It is to be hoped that the new welfare proposals will also provide those who wish to do so to continue in education, or enter the workplace.
It is still extremely difficult for young girls with babies to continue in secondary school or to attend a third level institution. Even if the girl has support from her family her mother may be working and not available to be the willing child minder, even if the task was thrust upon her as a bit of a surprise. Crèche fees can be bad enough for someone who is earning money but for a student they are impossible and places attached to colleges are in short supply.
Women with a desired pregnancy no longer go around in burka-type outfits as they did in the good old days. Indeed, I have met about-to-be-born babies at parties with just a covering of the uterus, their mother’s skin and a layer of chiffon preventing me from saying “hello” to them.
But, despite all our talk, babies get a lukewarm reception here. All the new child care proposals, welcome though they are, to a considerable extent focused on improving the possibilities of the new mother getting back to work to keep the economy going. That they might increase the length of time new mothers were breast-feeding their new little darlings was certainly not mentioned. Irish women are the most fertile in Europe now but with the fertility rate at 1.98 per Irish women it looks as though we’ll need all our present immigrants and even more in the future.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
