IFPA Launches Campaign for Safe and Legal Abortion in Ireland
http://www.ifpa.ie/news/index.php?mr=111

Between January 1980 and December 2004, at least 117,673 women traveled from Ireland for abortion services in Britain. There are no statistics to account for the number of women who travel to other countries for abortion services

http://www.ifpa.ie/abortion/iabst.html

These are not faceless numbers.

This is your sister, your friend, your work college, your aunt, your mother, your girl friend, your ex girl friend, the person you see on the dart, luas, bus every morning,the girl in the newsagents, or checkouts or the girl that was giving you the eye the last time you were in that bar.

Every one of them made that very hard choice, made even harder by having to travel and in years gone by not being able to get information.

And then you have those that could not get the money together.
Who say they love their kid but wished their life could have been different but they did not have the money for flights ect.

Ideally every act of conception should be one that both people have planned but life doesn’t work that way, esp with the lack of education and of cheap contraception in this country.

So we ignore the big taboo.
Women don’t tell their stories.
They don’t share why they full of relief, guilt,sadness and happiness twice a year, usually the date of their termination and that date the child would have been born.

Being in the enviable position of having to think about an abortion is hard.
Having to make that choice is hard.

Having to make an appointment to get information or a referral is hard.
Keeping that appointment and talking out loud about your choice is hard.
Booking flights and traveling over, knowing that the mid morning flights
carry other women like you and the air stewards can spot them is hard.

Having to get into a taxi and give the name of the clinic and seeing the look of sympathy or shock, hard.
Facing the dr and the counselor in the clinic in the UK and having them ask
you if you are sure even after you have traveled all the way there is hard.
Traveling home, telling no one, having to go through the mental , emotional, hormonal and physical aftermath of a termination and most people not knowing what is up with you and you can’t tell them is hard.

Having this topic bandied about by people who have never been through it is hard.
Seeing pro lifer nuts on the streets of our city condemning so many women is hard.
Having it used as a political foot ball is hard.
Having it said that it is political foot ball is hard.
Having people make moral judgment about who would or could have a termination is hard.

And they say we DON’T punish women for having abortions in this country don’t make me laugh.

Being able to be there for a friend and travel with them and offer solace
and waiting for their call or text on those two days a year is hard also
but nothing compared to what they have been through.