EASING THE SUFFERING

ABORTED WOMEN - SILENT NO MORE

ANNE'S STORY

During our Dublin Street Session on the 1st June '96 a woman approached me saying she had a story to tell.

Anne’ s story began eight and a half years ago when she was pregnant with her third child. Her eldest child was four, her other child two. She became pregnant again and she knew the father of her child was HIV positive. She went to a South Dublin Inner-City Drugs Treatment Centre where she was seen by a ‘ Social Worker.’ Anne told her story. The Social Worker informed her that both Anne and her unborn child would undoubtedly develop AIDS. This is untrue as a very small percentage of babies born to HIV mothers/fathers are infected themselves. However, Anne was very confused and distraught and no one told her otherwise. Abortion was the best solution and she had two young children already, why have the third, they said, when both she and her unborn child would die? Anne asked the Social Worker what would happen to her seven week-old baby if she had the abortion. The Social Worker replied that it wasn’ t a baby, only a tiny blob, which wouldn’ t feel any pain and that the baby was going to die anyway.

Anne, in her extremely distraught state, was referred to a well known, state-subsidised women's centre. The clinic personnel asked her did she want to have an abortion. Anne replied she didn’ t know what she wanted. It was quite obvious, she told me, that at that time she needed help and support. However, the clinic personnel explained to her that the Drug Treatment Centre had told them of her situation, and that they knew abortion was the best solution. Instead of telling her the truth of baby/parent HIV transmission they continued the web of deceit the Social Worker had spun, eventuallY coercing Anne into having the abortion. Pro-lifers know that the best way to make a woman have an abortion is by constant encouragement and ‘ counselling’ - in a matter of time the woman is beaten down so much that she sees abortion as the only option and worst of all, she is tricked into thinking that she has made the decision for herself.

The top doctor in the treatment centre was the only person in this saga who told some truths. He told Anne that the chance of her baby developing AIDS was about 1% and he asked Anne a number of times if she felt abortion was the answer to her problems. Anne remembered that he seemed afraid to speak out as if he did not want open confrontation with the Social Worker whom he worked with. However, a barrage of others quoting “ rational” and “ responsibility” convinced Anne that abortion was the answer to her problem.

The Drug Treatment Centre in conjunction with the women's clinic arranged for her to have the abortion. It was all over within two weeks. Anne travelled to Liverpool alone. She remembers being reassured by the Drug Centre Social Worker that this was one of the "best abortion clinics in the the British Isles." She was woken up at 7am to go down to the clinic and most of the workers there "ignored" her. Anne received no counselling. When speaking to Anne, her eyes fill up as she tells how she feels this little baby was a girl. (She has two boys). “ She would be making her Holy Communion around this time,” She said and remarked how upset she gets on seeing young communicants in pretty white dresses.

Anne has been trying to have another baby and has already had a miscarriage. She told me how she is too embarrassed to go to the Rotunda to investigate her inability to have a child as she feels they will know she has had an abortion and that she does not deserve another child. That there are two victims of abortion, is particularly evident in this case. Anne is a classic victim of the girl with an “ unwanted pregnancy” who sought advice from the proabortionists.

Sometimes people criticise us for showing pictures of aborted children on the street. They say that
they are upsetting for women who have had abortions. Yes, these pictures upset Anne as they upset any humane person. Yet, she repeated to me over and over how important these picture are. She wished she was shown them. Help us ease the suffering

MARY'S STORY

I remember the people in the clinic only too well. I was 18, yet they made me feel like a silly little girl who soiled her pants, and they were employed by all humanity to clean up the mess. You know what? I've felt like a piece of dirt ever since. They certainly do their job well. They're so professional that what they say sounds like the truth in no time.

And I believed it all because they made it so easy and because I wanted to. How could I have been so blind as to be taken in by a man in a white coat? It all seemed to civilised. Beautiful consultation rooms where babies are not mentioned unless you bring it up. I told them that if I had the baby my sister and her husband would look after it. The woman explained gently what a ludicrous idea it was, and then I thought it was ludicrous too

A couple of days after my visit to the clinic my brother took me to the "nursing home." He wanted to come in with me but I wouldn't let him; I wanted to be there alone. I was called to an examination room where I was examined by different doctors - one female and two male. As one doctor examined me he looked at the ultra sound beside me.

The screen was turned away from me so I asked if I could see what he was looking at. He said it was best not to, and I didn't ask again. I asked him how they would kill the baby. He looked shocked and sort of gulped and said I should think of it as just a blob, as that was what it looked like on the screen. After that I was sent to a room upstairs. I undressed and sat on the bed waiting. I felt frightened and alone, and the bed seemed so big.

Later someone came and put me on a trolley and took me to the theatre downstairs. That's when I remember thinking I was going to crack. Lying down, all I could see were lights and monitors and machines made of steel. There was a lot of movement. Green-robed figures darted back and forth. Tired of being brave and tight-lipped I wanted to cry. Everything happened so fast. Amidst all the movement around me a needle came from somewhere. A choking sensation and then... nothing. I came around in a recovery room. Two nurses stood over me, chatting and giggling.

The whole episode is a nightmare now. When I picture it now I see myself screaming and shouting 'No, No', but then I went along with it all in a pathetic way. There were no cries of protest then. Which brings me back to 'if' and 'only.' Only God knows the depth of my remorse. There are no words to describe it. I want to wake up one morning and feel happy, or if not happy, just relaxed.

Love Mary

“YOU SAVED ME AND MY CHILD FROM ABORTION

On the second last day on one of our National Information Roadshows a young girl with a baby in a pram approached us and told us her story. She explained that the year before she had become pregnant and that while her parents were good to her, she felt that this would be too much for them. Her boyfriend had deserted her.

She arranged an abortion for herself through a London telephone number and the woman on the other end of the line assured her that a "termination of pregnancy" was the best thing for her.. By the time she hung up the phone she was convinced that abortion was her only option. But three days later she paid a visit to Limerick City. On the way to Todds, she noticed a group of young women handing out leaflets and showing people pictures. "I took a leaflet as I walked by, read it, stopped and decided to go back and have a closer look." She told us that her heart

was racing and she was now really confused by what she read in the leaflet and what she had been told. "Something inside me was saying that I was carrying a little baby. The leaflet set my heart racing. I had to go back and talk to someone."

One of the girls began to talk to her about abortion and showed her the development of the child and what abortion does a baby and its mother, and gave her some more literature to look over. At this point, she took her baby from the pram and showed him to us. "His name is Anthony. This is the baby I was carrying last year. If I hadn't stopped and read your leaflet and gone back to talk to that girl, my baby would have been killed." "You saved me and child from abortion."