Without Consent

at

Screen Shot 2014-08-17 at 01.13.32

A woman who became pregnant as a result of rape believes the state denied her access to an abortion for months, until the foetus became viable. Earlier this month, the baby was delivered prematurely through a Caesarean section, which was authorised under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act.

The young woman, a foreign national with limited English, was not able freely to travel abroad for an abortion because of her legal status in Ireland. She discovered she was expecting about eight weeks into the pregnancy, and immediately sought an abortion because she had been the victim of a traumatic rape.

Months later, the woman believed she had been effectively refused an abortion, or the ability to travel abroad for such a procedure, by the state. She then went on a hunger and liquid strike.


State ‘denied abortion’ to rape victim (Mark Tighe, Sunday Times)
(behind paywall)

 

Sponsored Link

110 thoughts on “Without Consent

  1. Am I Still on This Island

    On the other side it shows the Iona & Simons nonsense of terminations up to full term are well nonsense

        1. Am I Still on This Island

          ABM although you have been quite rude and not answered my question yet I am happy to answer yours. The lies about floodgates & abortions being carried out until full term, rather than doctors doing everything they can to save a viable pregnancy

          1. Am I Still on This Island

            Finally proof ABM is a poor and weak troll! But here is the answer

            Niamh Uí Bhriain July 13 2013- pro life rally Dublin reported in the Irish
            times

            “The reality is that this legislation allows for abortion until birth & will encourage doctors to terminate viable pregnancies ”

            Or from their own website!

            http://www.thelifeinstitute.net/blog/2013/05/08/no-limits-the-cruel-archaic-and-unacceptable-reality-of-irelands-abortion-proposals/

            Still waiting on you to answer my question further Dion the thread

          2. ABM

            Haha. “well” accused the Iona Institute and/or Caroline Simons of being liars and then scurried off.

            And yet you chime in with a quote Niamh Uí Bhriain published on the Life Institute website. Comprehension not your forte?

            So you think Niamh Uí Bhriain and/or the Life Institute are liars? Are all pro-lifers liars in your view?

            Just to be clear:

            “allows for abortion until birth”

            Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 does. There is no cut off point written in.

            “encourage doctors to terminate viable pregnancies”

            That the case reported in the Sindo even went to a panel just shows that abortion is up for consideration and on a menu of options available to the doctor. Who is to say that in future a doctor might find it expedient (career progression/financially/personal favour/ideological) to sign off on a procedure?

            Just for your info: Niamh Uí Bhriain has a good track record at winning libel cases. Please leave your name and address on your next post if you wish to persist in calling her a liar.

  2. inotherwords

    Is it really the role of the state to decide to carry out a c-section (by court order)? Given that the woman gave consent in the end – was she placed under pressure to do so? The mother was described as very vulnerable – how many consultations did she have with psychiatrists, clinical staff, legal folk etc. during this vulnerable time? How is the baby doing, will it have any long term health/developmental issues due to the very premature delivery? Who gets custody of the baby – the mother or the state? How is the mothers condition now, is she still suicidal?

    1. ABM

      That’s right. No woman has ever been placed under pressure to have an “abortion” by a domineering father/boyfriend/partner/husband/brother/sister/mother/”friend”/teacher/counsellor/abortion salesman/doctor/etc.

        1. ABM

          I see. It simply does not happen.

          Or maybe a reality that abortion cheerleaders like you prefer to detect attention from.

          1. Sidewinder

            Whereas women have never been forces to give birth by abusive partners/parents/priests or their own government. We should probably ban birth too to be safe.

          2. WhoAreYa

            ABM is right this time, even a stopped clock is right twice a day

            Now have a guess how many women have been pressured not to have an abortion by anti-woman hate groups?

          3. ABM

            No idea. Do you have the figures to hand?

            Or maybe you’ll just over-emphasise encouragement given to women to have their baby and completely ignore the pressure (indeed incentives) placed on vulnerable women to go on a holiday to England.

    2. dd

      ah, inotherwords, I’m not entirely convinced that the woman and the baby at the centre of this case would really benefit from divulging all of this information. Quite why you feel the need to know such personal issues is beyond me.

    1. ABM

      And the child, please God, will go on to finish school, maybe go to college, get married and have a family. Will you wish he/she was never born, the same way you wish disabled people were never born?

        1. ABM

          Do you know my civil status? What’s your civil status? Let me guess, you are a sterile co-habiting couple living in a rented flat somewhere. Boyfriend or girlfriend?

          And what of all the kids not being born because of all the girls who have “switched off” their reproductive systems or all the men who abruptly interrupt the unitative act so they can do what they were trained to do in school when they were 16 – always wear a condom, for the greatest pathology of them all is pregnancy. That’s real intimacy that is.

          1. Spartacus

            “men who abruptly interrupt the unitative act”

            I’ve worked out who ABM is now. John Charles McQuaid reincarnated.

          2. ABM: social misfit

            LOL. Do you honestly expect us to believe ABM that a happily partnered or married man, psychologically healthy and socially functional behaves as you do online peddling extremist, divisive commentary, the latest manifestation being roundly denigrating a rape victim? Of course, you’re a sexually mature adult male fully contributing to society who can find the time, at a moments notice, to spring forth spewing bile amd bitterness the minute one of your so-called causes celebres appears. It goes hand in hand with gainful employment. Yes, of course you’re married, happy and not at all a social misfit. What woman and children wouldn’t be happy to see her partner and husband behave as you do online and ventilate your views in your own hallmark manner ABM? And to think some people have the temerity to opine that there is likely a hypocritical grim reality, crushing loneliness and displacement quality to your online presence? How dare they. How wrong they are?!

        1. ABM

          Twisted logic and a non argument. Nor is it an excuse to destruct life (as you appear to be suggesting). Because the probability is balanced by the child’s potential to save millions.

        1. Anne

          He’s find him a little endearing in a sort of petulant way..
          Isn’t there a website for the horny devouts – Catholic match or something?

  3. ABM

    Any woman who willfully desires to kill her own flesh and blood should to be committed.

    This baby was near term, right? What the hell was going through that woman’s mind? She was insane.

    1. Am I Still on This Island

      How far gone was she when she originally asked for the abortion 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks do you know?

      1. ABM

        All women with abortive thoughts should be offered a live ultrasound of their womb. If they refuse, they should be put on 24 hour watch.

        1. Am I Still on This Island

          You want to answer the original question?
          Also I seem to remember you claiming that abortions would be occurring up to 39 weeks, it appears the doctors on this case did everything to save both the mother and her unborn, rarer than just carrying out a termination, despite the impact on the mother.

          1. ABM's bloody underwear

            There’s no point conversing with that t**t.
            Answer his questions with sources and facts, they’ll be ignored.
            Ask for sources to his own wildly “plucked from arse” statements and you’ll be ignored.

        1. ABM

          “medical abortion”. Lol.

          I suppose that’s way you need train yourself to think if you want to sleep at night.

          1. Sidewinder

            No, pregnancy is a medical condition that requires medical care. And the term “medical abortion” is a medical term. Care to answer my question?

    2. Bells

      I have been pregnant twice. One I lost early on and one I carried to full term. I loved every minute of both pregnancies. I even managed to love the nausea, the back pain, the hip pain, the growing pains. Your body constantly reminds you that you are pregnant. And as not nice as some physical symptoms were I still loved them.

      I cannot imagine how difficult it must be if all those physical reminders brought back very recent memories of a rape. Of a physical act I find impossible to even watch or hear about in fiction. I know nothing more than headline information about this case but I know I can barely imagine how difficult living through a pregnancy by rape must be.

      1. ABM

        The church’s position on pregnancy as a result of rape is well thought out and well known. Neither you nor I are going to improve on this.

        But don’t let me stop you from entering into a transition year -style debating contest. There are lots of bulletin board type website around where you can tap away to your heart’s content about the evil catholic church.

        1. Miami Dolphin's Barn

          The church’s position is only well thought out when they are covering their own tracks of abuse or looking to pull the wool over peoples eyes. You’re pathetic ABM, a proper nonse.

          1. ABM

            When was the last recorded case of sexual abuse of a child under church care?

            When was the last recorded case of sexual abuse of a child under State care?

          2. ClampersOutside!

            There you go again benchmarking with fupped up childcare system against another completely fupped up childcare system and claiming to be the one that is less fupped up as if that was some sort of higher ground.
            At leaat I know you set the bar so very, very low to begin with.

        2. Am I Still on This Island

          Just like their position on the protection of pedophiles in the confession box!

          1. Sidewinder

            Doesn’t matter to ABM. He sees everything through a lens that is firmly directed and focussed by the vatican.

        1. ABM's bloody underwear

          Hey! how come you get to call him a tw*t and when I do it, it gets asterisked?

    3. inotherwords

      Just because it was a viable pregnancy does not mean it was near term. The baby was delivered 4 months early which will likely have a significant impact on the health and livelihood of the baby.

  4. Mcbab

    It seems she was in the 2nd trimester which is between 13 weeks to 28 weeks. If, as it appears, she was at 23 or 24 weeks how do you abort a baby at that stage? Possibly the baby was delivered by c section to finish the pregnancy for her in an effort to avoid both physical and psychological problems?

    1. ABM's bloody underwear

      In the article, as well as being quoted by Broadsheet in bold, beneath the article

      “She discovered she was expecting about eight weeks into the pregnancy, and immediately sought an abortion because she had been the victim of a traumatic rape.”

          1. ABM

            She claims she was raped. There is no conviction mentioned. No mention of an arrest. Not even a suspect. Did she report the alleged rape to the Gardai?

            I doubt you have the full facts either.

            And don’t believe everything you read in the Sunday Independent.

            I’ve seen these kinds of people in operation before. They make bad decisions and then they try to play the victim so as to get as much State sympathy for themselves as possible so they can convince themselves that they’ve done the right thing. The guilt in the bottom of their hearts results in them ending up as vocal man-hating pro-choice activists who think that the guilt they feel is not a result of their actions; but because of those evil christian folks who aren’t afraid to remind people of their wrong-doing.

            Give me a penny for every woman who “had a miscarriage” or was “raped” and I’d be a rich man.

          2. Sidewinder

            You are, in every sense, in every physical and philosophical way from the bottom of your hollow heart to the too of your atrophied brain the most vile, pathetic, stupid individual I have ever EVER had the misfortune to encounter.

            If the only thing in this case you see fit to condemn is the woman herself then I wouldn’t urinate on you if you were on fire.

            Open your ears and open your mind and listen to people who have suffered and there is a mild chance that you may earn a grain of humanity before you die.

          3. ABM

            That’s right. How dare anyone remind a fellow human that their actions are morally despicable (i.e. women who procure abortions).

            That’s the preserve of left-wing holier-than-thou do-gooders with “degrees” in social theory.

            You are quick to point the finger about decades gone by. The Utopia that the sociologists and feminists (now on pensions) envisioned hasn’t quite worked out as planned, eh?

          4. ClampersOutside!

            I love idiots that cannot comprehend the time scale required for many socieyal changes. “it hasn’t happened… *sticks tongue out* you failed” is what you sound like ABM, a demented curmudgeon running the stubborn belief that you have won something when all the while the change continues around you… I’ve heard that situation to be called ‘deluded’, fitting isn’t it.

  5. Formerly known as @ireland.com

    The Kingkenny house does not make Ireland disgusting, forcing a woman to have a C-section after rape, makes Ireland disgusting.

    1. PJ Hammond

      There are contradictions in the story.
      She asked for an abortion after eight weeks. [suits the pro-choice argument]
      She asked for an abortion late in the second trimester [suits the pro-life position]

      On a simple level
      – A baby has been born and some people are ranting and raving about how it should have been killed.

      But life is never that simple nor is it black and white. Someone better tell the outraged feminist ire ladies on Twitter.

        1. PJ Hammond

          The headline in the Independent: “I am afraid I’ll be killed” conflicts with the woman’s solution to her predicament by killing herself.

          Get your head around that. “Someone is going to kill me for being pregnant, I’m really afraid of dying, so I think I will kill myself.” This says a lot about the profession of psychiatry that it would validate this sort of rubbish.

          And it says a lot for a law allowing abortion on the basis of suicide.

          A least the medical profession can hold their heads up high this morning. A baby is alive with an opportunity to grow outside the womb not rot in the ground or end up in the hospital incinerator.

          *SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW. I JUST CAN’T*

          1. bruce01

            Are you in the queue to adopt this and other unwanted babies? Are you actively helping people who have to deal with their children born from rape, who they didn’t want to have? That is the way you can help. Not ‘rant and rave’ on the internet. Get your head around that.

          2. Violet

            It seems sadly typical of your side of the argument that you are so fervently devoted to the unborn and so unrelentingly nasty about actual grown women. It’s a cliche I wish wasn’t true.

          3. Nially

            “Get your head around that. “Someone is going to kill me for being pregnant, I’m really afraid of dying, so I think I will kill myself.” This says a lot about the profession of psychiatry that it would validate this sort of rubbish.”

            There are loads of situations where people would choose suicide over a more painful death with more suffering in between. It’s completely rational to prefer to die (comparatively peacefully) by your own hand rather than face a violent death at someone else’s. It says a lot about your pre-existing biases and determination to rubbish this story that you find there to be such a contradiction there.

          4. Nigel

            ‘Get your head around that. “Someone is going to kill me for being pregnant, I’m really afraid of dying, so I think I will kill myself.” This says a lot about the profession of psychiatry that it would validate this sort of rubbish.’

            This is why laypeople, indeed anyone who has difficulty ‘getting their head round’ complex psychological states shouldn’t be let within an asses’ roar of ever having anything to do with deciding anything associated with psyhiatric issues.

      1. cluster

        The point is that if a woman does not want to carry a pregnancy, she should not have to.

        Deciding if it was or was nor rape, or ‘legitimate rape’ or whether she was suicidal or not etc. can never be cleanly resolved.

        The system we now have was a reasonable attempt to finally address the X-case verdict but it is time that we let pregnant women decide for themselves.

  6. Daisy Chainsaw

    An Irish solution to an Irish problem… Keep a woman with a crisis pregnancy waiting so long for a decision that she has no choice but to go through with the forced birth option.

    1. ABM

      “crisis pregnancy”? Is it a crisis that the CWO’s budget might only be able to pay for a MacLaren buggy and not a Kate Middleton model?

      1. Sidewinder

        “You *must* give birth.”

        “No I won’t financially support you or your baby.”

        Pro-life logic

        1. ABM

          There was a time when there was a thing called “family”. Nowadays people want the “state” to give them free buggies and free gaffs.

          1. Sidewinder

            You’re right. It should be Vincent de Paul that does that like they did back when women had 15 kids when they couldn’t afford because they were proper Catholic women who obeyed their husbands and didn’t use birth control.

  7. Michael

    …But back to the story itself which is that a case where limited abortion should be allowed and the fact that despite new legislation the answer still is, as always, NO.

    Could this vulnerable woman stop her rapist? NO.
    Did she, despite having suffered a severe traumatic event delay in seeking an abortion once she discovered she was pregnant? NO.
    Could she travel to another jurisdiction to have the procedure carried out? NO.

    She did all she could but despite the medical experts determining that she had suicidal thoughts, the answer, as always, is NO.

    Has much as people may not like it, the answer must sometimes be YES. If you want to maintain an absolute ban on abortion, we all must share in the consequences.

    Here is a modest proposal: how about adopting out the child that would have been aborted on a lottery basis? All citizens of the state would be eligible, there would be no grounds for refusing to care for the child, if the citizen chosen was deemed unsuitable to physically care for the child themselves, they would be liable for financially supporting child and their extended family would assessed to find a suitable guardian.No ducking the issue. You want the ban? You got it, but you may be left holding the baby.

    1. ABM

      There are infertile and mature couples going off to Thailand every day of the week looking to adopt babies.

      1. Sidewinder

        Ah but isn’t that their own fault for having abortions and taking the pill for years so they don’t deserve kids?

        1. ABM

          The mindset of any woman who’s been on the pill for 20 years should preclude her from ever getting her hands on children.

          1. Ed

            ATTENTION ALL WOULD-BE BROADSHEET TROLLS!

            This is how you do it.

            Calm. Assured. Consistent. Unruffled by any response. Twisting melons. Sowing chaos.

            Kudos ABM. You sir, are a troll’s troll.

          2. Sidewinder

            Is that a mindset that goes like “f**k this endometriosis is crippling me, it’s probably ok if I get medical attention for it”?

      2. Michael

        ABM, with the lottery system these couples would not have to travel at all, happy days!! By the way….It could be you.

  8. Humans eh!

    Have to agree with Ed above.
    One must admire such dogged determination and relentless combative stance.

    Admit it folks, BS would be a much duller place without ABM spewing like old faithfull (no pun intended).

    His/their arrival to a relevant thread is anticipated (often with a 5.4.3.2. ABM countdown) and if he/they didn’t show up wouldn’t we feel a bit cheated?

    :-)
    ABM – the troll master extroadinaire.
    What’d we do without you!

  9. Anne

    We really hate women in this country.. Poor woman.
    You’d get refugee status from another country with the treatment she got here.

  10. AmeliaBedelia

    The details of this case really cements the absurdity of the cobbled together please everyone and no-one at the same time Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act was always going to be. The horror of a state force-feeding and force-sectioning a trapped rape-victim resulting in a child born at the cusp of viability with all the developmental delays that such an early birth ensures is so beyond farcical as to be unbelievable. Sadly it appears that the blanket ban on abortion seems preferable to this charade of supposedly ‘listening’ to women and then strong-arming them with every apparatus of the state into a motherhood they never wanted nor asked for in the first place.

      1. Lorcan Nagle

        All the pro-choice groups are working towards a referendum to repeal the 8th amendment. You can sign a petition at http://www.abortionrights.ie, or at any ROSA or abortion rights campaign street stall which will be presented to the referendum commission as soon as we have enough signatures.

        There’s an open meeting of the abortion rights campaign tonight in outhouse on capel street, starting around 7, and a demonstration at the spire on Wednesday at 6

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie