Julia Heffernan, the public relations officer of Life Ireland, asked some questions about abortion, arising from a column I wrote. They centre on the differences between a pregnancy of 10 weeks, and one of 24, and on where an abortion takes place.
I want to respond in view of other readers' private comments about how difficult they find it to speak in opposition to the anti-abortion lobby. One man told me he felt "traumatised" into silence by the whole debate. He is not alone.
If you welcome your pregnancy, then by 10 weeks you may be starting to enjoy it. Your breasts are bigger but not so tender as they were a few weeks ago and your morning sickness is about to lessen. You may have decided not to tell until you pass the 12-week stage, just in case you lose it. Sometimes, you're exhausted but you still look great.
For all the hopes and dreams you may be starting to invest in your future baby, your embryo remains tiny - weighing less than 12g - fragile and unaware. It may respond to certain stimuli in a mechanical way, but as yet cannot hear, see, breathe or experience physical sensation. You can't tell its sex on a scan.
Terminating the pregnancy at this stage is a relatively simple surgical procedure. Your chances of dying are only one in 100,000, or 15 times less than your chance of dying in childbirth. The risk of complications is also minimal, and your chances of getting pregnant again are not reduced.
Your emotional well-being will depend on your general mental health, and while you may feel sad, you will not risk serious depression unless the pregnancy was begun in trauma, has provoked difficulty in your personal relationships, or has brought to the surface unresolved, longer-rooted traumas. The more shamefully you are treated, the more shameful you will feel.
THE implications for you and your foetus change rapidly as pregnancy progresses. By 24 weeks, hundreds of other pregnant women become visible to you wherever you go. This is a great stage, if you are healthy. You feel life within you, and the foetus still has enough room to move around without that sense of being pummelled you get later. You look pregnant: people who never spoke to you before start to chat, or smile across a street when they see your bump. You wish people would give you a seat on the DART, but few do.
Your foetus is now identifiably human in appearance. It is 32 cm long and weighs about 650g. From now on it will become fatter, and refine its bodily functions in preparation for surviving outside your womb. Experts aren't quite sure about the extent to which it responds to your voice and your attention, but you suspect it is starting to recognise you in some way you can't quite describe. Your partner, if you have one, may begin to feel more involved in what is happening, feeling the foetus move when he places his hand on your bulge. It is a special time.
An abortion at this stage represents the absolute maximum term permitted under British law, which for practical purposes is the main law affecting Irish women at present. It is also one of the latest timescales in the EU. If the foetus were born at this stage it could survive with expert care and would certainly attempt to breathe, although its lungs are not fully developed. Worst of all, it can feel pain.
The methods of termination used at this late stage involve a considerably higher risk. The foetus can be removed surgically, by making an incision on the woman's body. Alternately, labour is induced and happens as it would for a full-term baby. In either case, the woman's body behaves as if she had just given birth. Her breasts fill up with milk, her hormone levels react accordingly, and she needs exactly the same post-natal care. The effect on her emotional and mental health need not be spelled out.
That stage is when three times more Irishwomen than British women have abortions. It is an unarguable and chilling consequence of the blanket prohibition on abortion in this State. Research is not available on their socio-economic status, but it seems reasonable to speculate that these Irishwomen are probably poorer, less well-informed and with less access to advice and counselling. That does not mean their sensitivity to pain and suffering is any the less.
PEOPLE who oppose all abortions claim women will use abortion as a method of birth control if it is introduced here, although experience in other jurisdictions contradicts that view. In Britain, for example, the number of abortions rose in the first five years after the new laws were introduced, but fell afterwards. Fewer than 5 per cent of women who had an abortion returned for a second time.
A wide consensus supports better crisis pregnancy services, and better education on sexual and reproductive health. However, ethical differences within the anti-abortion lobby mean it has difficulty supporting better promotion of contraceptives, in ways more practical than simply saying "no". There is a particular need to encourage men of all ages to take more responsibility for their fertility, both through use of condoms and, at the right time, being man enough to get the "snip".
Sometimes, people argue the wrong thing for the right reasons. The rising rate of Irish abortions - and particularly late abortions - in Britain is a painful illustration of that trend. Positive tensions exist between those who are anti-abortion and those who are pro-choice, provided we learn to recognise bullying when it happens. If we manage those tensions intelligently, Ireland can devise abortion laws which recognise reality while avoiding the excesses of the British context. We won't be perfect any more, but we will be humane.
mruane@irish-times.ie