Choice Ireland

Untitled from ChoiceIreland on Vimeo.

On 1 December 2009, Choice Ireland appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children to present the results of its investigation into rogue crisis pregnancy agencies operating in Ireland, and to call on the government to regulate the activities of these groups. Choice Ireland members Sinéad Ahern and Maura Lane represented the group at the hearing, which heard details of the tactics used by these agencies to prevent women gaining access to the crisis pregnancy support services they need. For more on the CI investigation please "read more":

Twenty eight percent of women in Ireland – more than one woman in every four – will experience a crisis pregnancy during their lives. This means that thousands of women in Ireland need to avail of the key support provided by pregnancy counselling services every year. In its report, Choice Ireland outlined some of the practices the rogue agencies use, including giving women inaccurate information about the availability and consequences of abortion. One woman who made an appointment with such an agency was told that it was impossible to get an abortion before two months, “because the baby parts are so small that they get left inside the mother and the mother could die”. “The counselor then handed me a model of a foetus, and told me that this was the size of my baby in my womb. The model was about 8 times larger than a foetus would have been at the stage of pregnancy I claimed to be at. She told me to hold it in my hand for a few minutes.” This woman was given “information sheets” listing the dangers of abortion, which included sterility, a quadrupled risk of breast cancer, loss of other organs, promiscuity AND frigidity, alcoholism, fear of touching babies and child abuse.  

A transcript of the hearing is available at the Oireachtas site:

(tiny-fied URL): http://tiny.cc/4To9h