A story of abuse at the hands of a racist, sexist authoritarian state ---- This is as
complete a story about what happened to 'Migrant X' that we are aware of. Migrant X is a
young migrant women who it emerged was refused an abortion by the Irish state despite
apparently meeting the grounds of the X-case legislation and instead forced to carry the
pregnancy and agree to a C-section. The pregnanacy itself was the result of rape, Migrant
X attempted suicide after being refused the abortion and later went on a hunger and thirst
strike. Once what had happened to her became known there were sizeable pro-choice
solidarity demonstrations called across Ireland and at Irish embassies erseas. ---- We
have been given information that the migrant woman at the centre of the current forced
pregnancy was 'committed' to a psychiatric hospital following her initial request for
termination. It?s already known that the initial request was made when she was 8 weeks
pregnant. It was this crucial period in which she was being held incommunicado which led
directly to the Caesarian option being possible to impose as an ?alternative? to allowing
her to access the abortion she had asked for.
All those running the system which imposed such barbaric treatment on this women don?t
want to talk about individual cases. Of course they don?t, when you can get away with
speaking in broad generalisations you can avoid facing up to the barbaric situations
created by the laws you administer and maintain. The victims of this system become a mere
statistic.
But we know now what the outcome of the 8th Amendment & the Protection of Human Life in
Pregnancy Act is. It is an 18 year old woman, fleeing an unknown country where she was
raped. In a strange country with a cruel asylum system in which some people have already
been detained for over a decade she is told that she is pregnant as a result of the rape.
When the story of her treatment eventually breaks she tells a journalist, who asks if she
had people she could turn to, ?No, I didn?t want people to know . . . For me this was
shameful. In our culture if a girl gives birth to a child before marriage everything is
finished. No one can respect you. As well as that, for me, with the rape, it was
difficult? Kitty Holland, the journalist describes her as a ?softly spoken young woman, a
migrant who looks about four years younger than her age? who is ?thin, fragile?
At this point she is 8 weeks and 4 days pregnant. She has asked for an abortion. At this
point in time this could have been a simple procedure, a medial abortion involving no more
than taking a few pills. We know now that around this point she was committed to a
psychiatric hospital following her initial request for termination - we don?t know what
reasons were given but ahead of the introduction of the bill we warned that a common
consequence of revealing suicidal feelings was such a committal. For whatever reasons it
appears this woman was messed around by a number of institutions in the weeks that
followed after being led to believe she would be able to access an abortion.
It seems it was only 8 weeks later that she discovered she would have to find about 1500
euro for an abortion in England - a terrible situation that huge numbers of women in
Ireland face every year. But as a migrant women forced to flee her own country as far as
we know she had no income and no social network she could turn to for help, she also had
limited English. We don?t know her exact status but women similar to her who are in the
?Direct Provision? system receive only 19 euro per week. She also doesn?t appear to have
been informed of initiatives like the Abortion Support Network who ?help women from
Ireland and Northern Ireland travel to England to access a safe and legal abortion?
She says it was at this point that she decided to kill herself and returning to the place
where she lived she tried to kill herself through hanging but ?she was interrupted? Even
after this it appears it was only when she subsequently made contact with a family friend
that they finally advised her to ?go to a GP and tell them she was suicidal because of the
pregnancy?
It seems impossible to consider the account to this point and not wonder aloud as to how
none of the officials she encountered explained to her that this was the only way she
could access an abortion in Ireland. Was it fear for their own jobs or funding? Was it in
some cases an ideological opposition to women being able to access abortion?
She went to a GP, the GP referred her to hospital where she saw first one psychiatrist who
told here ?No, you are already too far pregnant? and later that night a second who told
her the same thing. The following morning she was scanned again, she was now 24 weeks
pregnant and it was too late to have an abortion. She told them ?You can leave me now to
die. I don?t want to live in this world anymore?? and stopped eating and drinking. It
appears she was put on a suicide watch as she was always watched over by a nurse who even
accompanied her to the bathroom.
It appears the hospital took a case to the courts and were allowed to force feed her. She
reports that after four days she was told by two doctors that she was going to be given an
abortion the following week but that she would have to eat and drink to be strong enough
for the procedure.
A few days later she says she was told she couldn?t have an abortion, that she would have
to have a Caesarean section. After another couple of days she was told ?the authorities
had been made aware of her situation? and it was only at this point that she received a
solicitor via the HSE.
In terms of what she told Kitty Holland it seems that in these days she was paraded in
front of a number of experts and legal figures but that she ?didn?t speak to anyone. I
didn?t want to see people. I just listened to what they said without looking at them?
She described being shown the legal forms for the Caesarean signed as required under the
Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Act by "two psychiatrists and one gynaecologist".
She says ?I didn?t listen. I didn?t have a choice. All the suffering I had gone through.
Then on Wednesday at about 3pm they did it.?
You can see why all those in power don?t want to talk about ?individual cases.? Which of
these details that have emerged piece by piece over the last week would they be proud to
stand over. When you hear the details it becomes clear that the Irish state and its
institutions treated this woman as an awkward nuisance - a legal complication that had to
be shuffled around. For the HSE it appears it was a good outcome as their spokesperson
told the Irish Times ?a pregnancy can be terminated by way of delivery through Caesarean
section, as it was in this instance? and that this mean there would be no need to review
the process.
How many officials were involved in total in shuffling this women around? What government
ministers knew, and were these ?the authorities [that] had been made aware of her
situation?? When Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald was in Geneva in July to answer the
UN charge that ?Irish abortion law treats women as a vessel and nothing more? did she
already know the facts of this case? The HSE knew in May so it seems likely. It?s hard to
imagine a more clear cut case of a women being treated as a ?vessel and nothing more?.
Minister Charlie Flanagans cruel if perhaps careless words this morning that ?There
doesn?t appear to be an appetite for a further referendum? confirm that attitude.
Our focus here is restating what is known, and adding this additional information about
the the women being committed is not to target some minister or official for punishment
for the way they allowed this women to be treated. What is on trial here are not
individuals but the entire system of racist, sexist subjugation we have allowed to be
constructed in our name. Repealing the 8th amendment and ending deportations are only the
first small steps in bringing that system to an end.
WORDS & IMAGE: Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )
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