Abortion denial barbaric, says family planning body

The British Family Planning Association has described the decision to force an immigrant rape victim in this country to give birth at 24 weeks rather than allow her an abortion as "nothing short of barbaric".

Last year, 3,679 Irish women travelled from Ireland to Britain for a legal abortion, as they can not access the procedure here. Some 438 abortion pills were seized from the postal service by customs, with 424 of these tablets containing misoprostol and 14 containing mifepristone.

Reacting to the ongoing controversy, acting BFPA CEO Audrey Simpson said: “The treatment of this young, vulnerable woman is nothing short of barbaric and a shocking indictment of those who would seek to control women and what happens to their bodies.

“If this can happen in Ireland, it could also happen in Northern Ireland, and it is a disgrace that women in both countries continue to face such discrimination.”

As the fallout out from the Y case continues, thousands of anti-abortion and pro-choice demonstrators took to the streets of Dublin at the weekend, with the first group marching on the Irish Family Planning Association’s offices in “a vigil of hope” for the baby at the centre of the current outcry.

Pro-choice protesters also marched on O’Connell St demanding a referendum on the repeal of the eighth amendment to the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the Irish Family Planning Association has strongly denied newspaper reports that gardaí investigated the IFPA following complaints that it advised clients to buy illegal abortion pills.

IFPA CEO Niall Behan said: “There has been no garda investigation into our advising clients to buy abortion pills.”

The IFPA says that if the topic is raised by a client with a crisis pregnancy, it adheres to strict protocols which involve informing them such pills are “illegal” and “dangerous”.

“This medication is self-administered without proper medical supervision and may be ineffective and sometimes harmful,” said Mr Behan.

It is understood that, if a client makes it clear she plans to resort to the illegal pills, the IFPA will warn her in detail about the medical complications she are risking and how to recognise such complications.

Gardaí did investigate the IFPA and a number of other crisis pregnancy clinics in 2012 after anti-abortion groups secretly recorded consultations with a number of counsellors where they alleged counsellors did not give equal weighting to the parenting, adoption, and abortion options open to a woman with an unwanted pregnancy.

The IFPA says that, despite reports to the contrary, garda investigations were not carried out at the IFPA’s Cork and Tallaght branches.

As the IFPA and a number of the other agencies are funded by taxpayers, the HSE completed an audit of the services following these revelations. This audit is yet to be published.

Following investigations, gardaí sent a file to the DPP. Pro Life Campaign deputy chair Cora Sherlock has said: “It is an outrage that the former minister for health James Reilly never made a single statement of concern on the matter in the two-year period since the scandal came to light.”