Outside the Box: Dystopian Ireland of reproductive autonomy

Wow, exciting! An episode of The Handmaid’s Tale is being filmed outside the Dail! Oh hang on. 

No, it’s Irish women dressed up in red capes and white bonnets, like the Handmaids – those who have no control or power over their own fertility, and whose bodies are state-owned vessels – in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian futurist novel.

Nothing imaginary about that lack of power or control here today in Ireland, eh, ladies? For Irish women who would like reproductive autonomy, every day is dystopian - just ask anyone urgently trying to get to the UK for a legal termination. Whilst travelling on Ryanair.

I try to imagine how the situation would unfold if my daughter, entering young adulthood, were to have an unwanted pregnancy in the future.

What would we do? Let me think about that for a nanosecond. Hmmmmm.

Would I (a) tell her that the future life of a handful of cells growing inside her is of equal importance right now to her own fully formed life, and that she should drop out of education and become a teenage parent reliant on state subsidy, at least a decade before she is ready for parenthood, working on the assumption that she does at some point wish to be a parent? Or would I (b) immediately drive her to the nearest chemist where, because we live in the UK, we can easily and without restriction access emergency contraception?

The second one. As much as I am looking forward to being a grandmother, I would not hesitate for one moment to place the needs and wants of my young adult child above all else, including the possible existence of any future unborn grandchildren.

This is all entirely hypothetical for now, as my daughter is in a monogamous relationship with

Instagram, but those Handmaids are a stark visual reminder of what she would face had she grown up in Ireland.

What lots of parents living in Ireland must face, if their young adult daughters are confronted with unplanned unwanted pregnancy, and have not yet attained financial and emotional independence.

How stressful that must be for all involved – even with the most supportive parents in the world, the Irish state continues to obstruct what is a private and personal matter.

That a woman cannot prevent an unwanted pregnancy – for whatever reason, none of which is anyone else’s business - unless they get to the chemist within five days clutching €35 will be looked back upon with the same mixture of disbelief and cringey embarrassment as when the Irish state used to fine pubs for having condom machines in their loos.

Our daughters will tell their daughters about that prolonged dystopian era in Ireland when they were criminalised for wishing to control their own bodies.

They will tell their daughters with the same horror and incredulity we reserve for all those past generations of women enslaved in the Magdalene laundries.

They will wonder – was it really like that, or were our mothers and grandmothers exaggerating?