‘Some rape victims opt to keep the baby’

Some asylum seekers who arrive here pregnant as a result of rape have decided to parent and have not sought an abortion, said the director of the Kerry Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre in Tralee yesterday.

Vera O’Leary said she was strongly of the opinion any female victim of rape should have access to an abortion.

However, she cautioned against concluding that all women who were raped automatically demanded one. She said in the centre’s experience, religious belief systems and cultural belief came into play strongly.

The centre has been used by female asylum seekers for counselling and advice after their experiences of sexual violence in their homeland.

However, the centre has not been in a position where it has had to assist an asylum seeker wanting an abortion, she said.

In one of the more recent incidents — but before the current 8th amendment legislation — a pregnant woman decided to parent but sought help in order to deal with the trauma of the rape, and a number of agencies, including the Tralee International Resource Centre, the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, and Ms O’Leary’s centre, assisted in an inter-agency approach.

The approach of all clients, Irish or non-Irish, to finding themselves pregnant after rape varied. “Some people decide to parent, some to go for adoption, some opt for abortion — the important thing is that a woman has to be given all the information.”

Female victims of rapes are offered the morningafter pill if they report the rape straightway. The centre refers all others for crisis pregnancy counselling.

It has been inundated with calls following the revelation that a teenage asylum seeker, pregnant after being raped, was denied an abortion and forced to deliver the baby through caesarian section. Calls also spiked after reports on a number of alleged sexual assaults in Co Kerry were prominent in the media.