'Back on the street outside that clinic 40 minutes after she gave birth. In her arms was the body of her baby son'

Isabel’s treatment lacked even the most basic level of human decency and was shocking in its lack of compassion, writes Alison O’Connor

AS A JOURNALIST, when you are listening to someone tell a story you usually try to keep your face fairly impassive. It’s a professional thing. But as I sat in a room in Cork city and listened to a woman tell the harrowing story of the way she had given birth in a UK abortion clinic just weeks earlier it was impossible not to wince at the horror she had endured.

I still can’t quite get over the idea that the Co Cork woman and her partner were back on the street outside that clinic 40 minutes after she gave birth. In her arms was the body of her baby son, wrapped in gauzy material, contained in a cardboard box.