It’s time to end the litany of horrors imposed upon women in Ireland

Can we name any medical/social scandal that has affected only the male gender?

During the final weekend of the Citizens Assembly’s considerations on the Eighth Amendment, as members voted on whether to allow abortion in Ireland, there was an interesting backdrop. It was the controversy over the location and control of our new national maternity hospital.

Funnily enough, there was also a backdrop for the previous month’s meeting. It was a report on the mass grave of the Tuam babies. It was this that added the edge as the citizens listened, on that weekend, to the personal stories from women speaking of their own experiences of the life under the Eighth Amendment.