Ireland won’t be an equal society until women can have abortions

I TUNED into BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, because it was about Ireland, and I still had that buoyant feeling from last week, says Suzanne Harrington.

‘Oh goody,’ I thought. More jolly, life-affirming, queertastic equality stuff. More about how, actually, these days, Ireland might be one of the most progressive places to live.

But it wasn’t about LGBT equality. It was about Irish women’s rights to what Irish journalist Una Mullally termed “bodily autonomy”. It was about how it is now easier to be a gay woman in Ireland than to be a woman who wants to be in charge of her own body. About how gay rights outstrip women’s rights. How the Irish state has successfully dealt with equality legislation, but won’t go near the legislation that would allow women to make their own medical decisions. It was about the ‘A’ word.