A woman who unexpectedly became pregnant in 1960 has spoken of having an illegal abortion in London’s East End.
During an event hosted by the Repeal the Eighth campaign on Sunday night, Ann Ingle, mother of Irish Times journalist and abortion rights campaigner, Róisín, recalled the procedure.
During an interview with her daughter, Ann Ingle said she had had reservations about sharing her story and did so “reluctantly”.
She agreed to because “it’s important people share those stories and people should hear them. Secrecy and shame hasn’t done us any favours”. In September 2015, Róisín Ingle wrote about her abortion.
Ann Ingle, who is from England, said she became unexpectedly pregnant in 1960. She had been seeing a “gorgeous Irishman, a Dubliner, with a beautiful smile and a singing voice to charm the birds off the trees” for a few months. His name was Peter.
“We made love using a contraceptive method he had brought over from Ireland called coitus interruptus, but there was more coitus than interruptus if you know what I mean and the inevitable happened.
“I was 21, abortion was illegal in the UK and I had got myself ‘in trouble’. That’s what they called it then. When I told members of my family they were horrified. They said this news would kill my father. I was the youngest and the apple of his eye.
“They took me to a woman in a quiet road somewhere in the East End of London. I remember it was raining. I went into the house and the lady said: ‘Take off your underwear and lie on the couch’.”
‘Horrible sensation’
“She then came towards me with a jug full of what looked like soapy water. She had a funnel in the other hand. She proceeded to pour the contents of that jug into my vagina. I was frightened. Cold and frightened, it was a horrible sensation. I was shaking. I didn’t know that it could have killed me. I lay there for about an hour and then she said go home, it will be all over in a couple of days. But it wasn’t.
“Two weeks later I was still pregnant and so my Daddy had to be told (news of my pregnancy didn’t kill him by the way) and a hasty marriage was arranged. A shotgun wedding.
“Three weeks after the wedding I miscarried. I spent the night in bed bleeding and in pain. The reason we got married was gone and I wondered if Peter regretted that forced marriage, because that’s what it was.
“Maybe he did, but we went on to have eight wonderful children anyway and one of them of course is you, Róisín.”
She said sometimes when her daughter talked about the Repeal the Eighth campaign she could be “patronising”.
“I’m sure there are lots of young feminists out there who feel they know better than their mothers but we all have lives and opinions and valid experiences too. And ignoring what us older women have to say is one of the mistakes you make, if you don’t mind me saying . . . There’s no black and white here. Every woman is different and every woman should be heard on her own terms.”
She said the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment could be won by “being kind and acknowledging that for every single woman and every single crisis pregnancy there is a different story”.
