The island nation is the only country in the EU in which termination is still illegal under any circumstances, forcing women to have the procedure abroad or else risk prosecution. But women’s rights groups are pushing for change
Elle doesn’t find it easy to talk about her abortion, not because she regrets it – she would do the same again without any hesitation – but because the memory of the terrible, almost overwhelming, fear and isolation she experienced at the time still makes her feel so angry. “I’m privileged,” she says, twisting the ring on her index finger. “I could afford to travel. But what about those less fortunate than me? I know of a woman who felt so desperate when she found out she was pregnant again, she put her three children in front of some cartoons on the TV, and went straight upstairs to the bathroom to begin launching herself from the toilet on to the floor in the hope of inducing a miscarriage.” She’s fighting tears now. “That woman almost killed herself. What about her? Does anyone want to hear her story?”
Elle, who is 40, works in the culture sector, in a job that she loves. Three years ago, she found herself pregnant, something that came as a terrible surprise: “I’d always been told by my doctors that I couldn’t have children.” Had she ever wanted them? “To be honest, I never really did. I don’t need a child to define myself. But it wasn’t only this that made me afraid. I’m from a single-parent family – my father has a wife and children elsewhere who don’t know about me – and my relationship with my mother is complicated. When I found out I was pregnant, I felt strongly that I didn’t want history to repeat itself. My heart had only recently been broken, and now I was in an on-off relationship with this foreigner who was planning to leave soon. When I saw the result, I freaked out. I didn’t need to make a decision. I knew straight away that I wasn’t going to have a baby. It wasn’t something I felt I was able to do.”
