Pro-life leaders have demanded that the Health Service Executive answer urgent questions regarding the C case where the state brought a teenage rape victim to Britain for an abortion against her parents’ wishes. The HSE had previously insisted that the victim - who was 13 years old at the time - demanded an abortion, but that has now been revealed that she did not understand what an abortion was and thought social workers were bringing her to have the baby delivered. She has now said that she wanted the baby adopted.
 
Niamh Uí Bhriain, who was involved in assisting the girl’s family in 1997 when the abortion took place, said that the HSE had some very serious questions to answer, and that the media were culpable in the abuse of C by refusing to ask these questions.
 
“C has now revealed that the decision to kill her unborn baby was made by social workers. We need to know how and why this happened, and why the state allowed a pro-abortion agenda to be pursued at cost to this young girl,” she said.

On RTE’s Pat Kenny Show C said:

“The nightmare still continues with me going to England to have the abortion. I remember flying over on the plane with social workers to have the abortion..”

“I didn’t understand what was happening. The foster mother took me out of school because I was getting sick constantly. She brought me to the doctor and the doctor gave me a wee urine sample that you wee into. So I did that for the doctor and he asked me to go back out to the waiting room and then never told me anything.

“The foster mother and the doctor stayed in the room and the next morning I woke up there were social workers at the table and I didn’t know what it was and I was like yeah, I thought I was getting the baby out.”

PK: “You thought there would be a living baby there?”

“Afterwards yeah. Then I remember waking up from the abortion and screaming and screaming and crying with the pain so they gave me another injection to fall back to sleep, well I don’t know, I fell back to sleep afterwards. I woke up then and I was in no pain so I asked for the baby and they told me there was no baby . . .

“I wouldn’t have wanted to keep it; I would have put it up for adoption or something. No I wouldn’t have wanted to keep the baby but I would have liked for it to be put for adoption . . .”

“I still, still to this day I’m still suffering. I went to get a death certificate done for the baby. I named her Shannon. So, like, that was pretty hard for me to do as well. I went away for a week and I did that. That was pretty hard for me to do as well. But I had to have some dignity to say that that child was still there . . .

“I’ve tried to kill myself. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to kill myself. But I have a little five- year-old son now so he’s keeping me, he is the best thing that has ever happened me now . .