In 1982 I was 19 years old and living in Monaghan Town. I was sexually active but at that time it was illegal for people in the Irish Republic to get the contraceptive pill or even durex. So I became pregnant. I wanted to keep my baby, but my mother who had her ‘image’ to uphold demanded that I get rid of my child. I had never even heard of abortion back then, but my mother was insistent that I would get rid of my unborn baby.
My mother and father drove to Emyvale in north Monaghan to the home of the lad they thought had got me pregnant and they demanded that he pay for me to travel to England to get rid of my unborn baby. The lad said it was not his baby, which was probably true, and my parents went to his sister and demanded they pay for my abortion.
My mother said she could not afford to pay for me to travel to England as she had her 25th Wedding anniversary that year, and she did not want the neighbours to know that I was pregnant outside of marriage, I would later learn that my Mother had in fact been pregnant when she married my father, still plenty of hypocrites in Ireland.
I continued to insist that I would not kill my unborn baby, however, my mother who continues to hug the altar rails in St Maccartan’s Cathedral every Sunday morning insisted that her grandchild would be disposed of or I would be thrown out of the family home where I lived.
Eventually I was put on the boat to England and my Mother had made an appointment for me at one of the abortion clinics over there. I was booked into a seedy bed and breakfast that was full of drunks and drug addicts; this suited my mother, as it was cheap.
When I went to the Clinic I was very scared. I was treated like an animal, I seen young girls coming out crying and their mothers telling them it was for the best. Eventually my name was called and I was taken into a room that had a leatherette bench covered in tissue paper, two stirrups were hanging from the ceiling and an array of surgical tools were laid out on a stainless steel table.
I was told to remove my clothes as two male and one female in white coats moved about the room, I was given a white paper gown to put on. I felt naked, embarrassed and scared.
I was told to get onto the bench, as I did I noticed the large black plastic bucket full of water at the end of the bench, I was so ashamed and scared, but I felt I had no choice, my Church going mother would throw me out if I did not do this terrible thing.
I was given an injection in the top of my leg and my legs placed in the stirrups. I was awake as the doctor placed long stainless steel scissors inside my womb, I could feel cutting motions inside my body, I had no real idea what was happening. The female then placed a vacuum type thing against my virgina and I could hear stuff being sucked from my body. The male doctor them used clamps to remove something from inside my body, I then seen the tiny head and torso of my baby son as they placed his dismembered body into the bucket of water to ensure he would breath no more.
I have never recovered from this horrible ordeal, I can still hear the faint cries, I think that’s what I heard. I hate my mother and father for what they forced me to do, I will never recover and I hate those ‘feminists’ who say it is a woman’s choice, it is not a choice for many thousands of young girls who are forced by their hypocrite parents to murder their unborn children each year. It is obvious that these women have never been forced to undergo this murderous procedure or they would have a real understanding that abortion is a tool of oppression and not a tool of liberation for women.
It is worth mentioning that in Ireland in 1982 anyone assisting in the unlawful destruction of an unborn child could face Life in prison under the 1821 Offences Against The Person Act, however, my Mother and Father have never been prosecuted, they are not the only ones to have committed such heinous crimes and I guess they won’t be the last.
