Gemma Hayes on Repeal the 8th

I believe that we have to repeal the Eighth Amendment. To me it seems crazy, in this day and age, that there’s not even an option of a termination in Ireland. It’s not there as a choice. That has to be wrong. Especially if you have a foetal abnormality or if you’re assaulted. It just seems to me: that’s not the standard for human rights in the rest of the western world. Women in those situations should be able to choose.

“I remember talking to somebody from rural Ireland, of an older generation, who was completely anti-abortion – and they were going, ‘Well, look, if abortion was available, every woman would be using this as a form of contraception’. And I thought it was the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Like people would just be jumping into hospital to have this done. That’s so insulting to women.

Obviously, I grew up in ‘Catholic Ireland’. I still believe that life starts once the egg meets the sperm – that that’s the beginning of human life. And this topic is so divisive. There’s two camps – and I just find it’s such a difficult thing to speak about because of how divisive it is. “But, funnily enough, once I became a mother, I realised just how prepared you need to be to look after a child. I have somebody very close to me who has a severely disabled child, and it’s very tough on the entire family and they don’t necessarily get the services that they need, because the HSE and the various governmental bodies are stretched to their limits. I see them struggling. And I just don’t know who wins in that situation.

“I definitely feel that it should be regulated and there should be limits as to who can have an abortion. I have no problem with that. But I can’t imagine anybody opting to have an abortion just by the by, you know. It’s a massive step to take and women know this.

“With my first pregnancy, I had a very close friend who was pregnant at the same time. I had my 20 week scan, she had her 20 week scan – and her baby’s brain never developed. And this is in Ireland. And I watched what she went through and I thought it was shocking – she was given this bad news, and then she was actually given information about clinics abroad to have an abortion. Why should she have to travel? She was told that while the child could live, the quality of life would be next to nothing because it would need help breathing. It would need help for the rest of its life. And she had to first of all deal with that devastating news, and then herself and her partner had to make the decision to go and terminate the pregnancy, which was such a hard thing for them to do.

“And on top of that, they had to get on a plane and travel to a different country because it was against the law in Ireland. So it was just a weird thing to see both the father and the mother go through this. And then, when they came back, she had absolutely zero support in Ireland for the physical or the emotional or psychological healing, after what she’d just been through. There was no support for them here. There was nobody talking them through it, what’s involved in the termination. Nobody to help them. Nothing for women, or for men, who go through this. That was just shocking to me – that this is how we treat women in Ireland.

“That’s why I chose to back Repeal the 8th, because it just seems archaic – that there’s one rule, even though every situation is different. If a woman is raped and conceives – there might be one woman who can deal with raising a child, from that rape, and another who may not be able to deal with that. And, there should be a choice. In the end, it’s as simple as that. Everybody has to be entitled to make their own choices in a situation like that, or in the one my friend was faced with. That’s why we have to repeal the Eighth Amendment.”