A pro-choice protester in Dublin, in September last year
You’ll recall the case of Ms Y, the suicidal teenage asylum seeker who discovered she was pregnant, after she was raped, and went on hunger strike in pursuit of an abortion.
Yesterday, Mark Tighe, in the Sunday Times, reported:
A baby boy was delivered prematurely at 26 weeks when doctors signed off on the procedure under the new abortion law after Ms Y was deemed suicidal. She had described the unborn baby as a “devil” and said she would rather die than bring it to term. The boy has since been taken into care by the state.
Letters claiming damages for personal injury have been sent to the health-screening centre at the asylum centre where she first lived, a psychiatric hospital, the maternity hospital where the baby was born, and the Health Service Executive (HSE).
The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), which was involved in counselling Ms Y after she discovered she was pregnant, is also being sued. An Garda Siochana, which is alleged to be involved in Ms Y’s forced repatriation to Ireland when she travelled to Liverpool to seek an abortion, has also been issued with a claim.
The Department of Justice and the Reception and Integration Agency, which have responsibility for managing asylum seekers, are also on notice of the claims against them.
Ms Y issues nine abortion lawsuits (Mark Tighe, Sunday Times)
Previously: ‘It Is Right To Be Angry In The Face Of Injustice’
Pic: Paula Geraghty
Poor boy. Hope he grows up in a better place.
I hope the same for Ms Y.
I hope this case sets a precedent for women
The C-Section took place at the minimum viable age. The child has something in the region of a 5% chance of surviving childhood without any severe health issues or defects, and only a 20% chance of living.
Good. I hope she wins all of them.
“An Garda Siochana, which is alleged to be involved in Ms Y’s forced repatriation to Ireland when she travelled to Liverpool to seek an abortion”
What the actual hell is that bull****?
My thoughts exactly. I’m so freaking glad someone is finally calling them up on their bullying bull poop. I’d even support the cases financially, but I imagine it’s a pro-bono case.
Unbelievable torture for this poor woman, from gruesome start to cruel finish.
I would really like to know more about how the guards where involved in this. Did they fly over there and physically bring her back? Did they ask the UK police to get her? I mean its unbelievable and unacceptable to treat someone like this.
Because she is/was an asylum seeker (I don’t know the details of her situation, but she definitely didn’t have freedom of movement) my best guess is that she was stopped at Liverpool by UK police who would have a) denied her entry to the UK and b) requested the Guards’ assistance in returning her to Ireland as that was where her journey originated. I hasten to add that I’m not defending any of this! I just think that’s probably what happened.
Yeah, you are probably right. Though this makes me both angrier and sadder….
You can’t be serious!
I’m totally serious. I have my serious face on and everything.
Well that sounds like a whole new circle of Hell.
Good luck and fair play to her.
“She had described the unborn baby as a “devil” and said she would rather die than bring it to term”
This is (along with the rest of the case) unsettling.
A vunerable young woman in that situation who is forced to endure carrying a foetus like she did is denied autonomy over her body which only exasperates the situation.
Dealing with the trauma of being raped is tough enough without then being forced to have your rapist’s kid against your expressed will. No wonder she felt horrified by it.
+1
Yes, why couldn’t see it as a cute ikkle baba when she was being slowly tortured by the state for the crime of being raped?
But it is a baby. An innocent one at that.
What was she guilty of? Being a woman? Having a crime committed against her person? Ending up in a country with such a brutal approach to human rights for women? I can promise you, it’s far, far easier to sentimentalise a foetus when it’s not you carrying it and being abused for doing so. Obviously, empathy is hard to come by for women in situations like this, but heaven forbid you ever have to face what she was facing. Being pregnant is hard enough when the baby is wanted. Being a stranger in a (very) strange land with every right stripped from you, including the right control your own body after a rape would be an horrendous experience, is an unbelievable level of hardship.
That she couldn’t be cooing over the foetus that was the legacy of a rape and the reason she was forcefed on a gurney shouldn’t take too much emotional intelligence to process.
You can rest assured that she came from a country with a FAR more brutal approach to women’s rights.
Her original country is not known is it? But what this women went through in Ireland, your country, and one where she was seeking sanctuary but denied the right to decide what happens to her body is nothing short of horrific.
No, it’s not known.
I stand by my original statement though.
Not saying she didn’t go through something horrible here, just providing some reasonable counterpoint to the usual dramatic hyperbole.
How can you stand by your original statement if you don’t know what country it was? You’re providing some great whataboutery and very little else.
Even if she is, what of it? It’s not actually a competition to find out which country treats women worst. The fact is, she got brutal, inhumane and unconscionable treatment in this country. Her human and personal rights were trampled all over in a manner which should be considered shameful to every person here. But apparently it isn’t, because somewhere else might treat women worse, she didn’t want to continue the pregnancy and – unholy of unholies – she didn’t sentimentalise a foetus, all of which adds up to her being a bad and unnatural woman deserving of any and every violence and indignity that the state could throw at her.
@Jane – its very important that she understands just how lucky she was to be treated like complete cr** in a real civilised-type country, rather than the one she comes from, even though we know nothing about it.
It was a foetus when she wanted a termination, not a baby. it was only a baby because they forced her to have it. Don’t get all emotive.
No it was just a clump of cells . YOU don’t get all emotive.
*fetus. Suffering exists in the psyche, something that the woman has and the fetus does not.
That Sunday Times article can only be viewed by subscribers.
fupping right, i hope she wins all nine cases.
As a taxpayer who will be funding any money she wins I want to make it very clear:
I hope she wins every single case.
I will not begrudge a penny she’s awarded. But that doesn’t mean I support the government spending money in all cases. For instance, I will very much begrudge every single penny spent employing the horrible people who did this to her.
+1
Reminds me that the law in the US protects the father’s (rapist) right to custody of any child resulting from a rape. There was a piece on this on Jon Stewart’s show.
Sure, the law should protect *that* family unit, while denying others… Makes so much sense.
That’s not terrifying at all is it? And imagine the poor kid having to be told one day how it was born?
If it stops our government dragging its knuckles and kicking cans down the road, it’s a good thing. Good luck to her.
Although if she wins them all, I’ll probably be complaining about all the money she’s been compensated by the state. But hey, it’s our govt’s fault, in it.
Replacing all the curse words with Famous Five alternatives makes people’s comments sound ridiculous. You need to take the poker out of your bum bums.
After you
Barbaric
All the way to ECHR, with this one. What she has gone through is nothing short of torture. Horrific, and I hope she wins every one.
That is an avenue open to her
What are the mechanics of a forced C section? How does that work?