Doctors have to play “medical roulette” with patients’ lives in applying Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws, the head of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) said. It comes as figures show 21 of the 3,735 who travelled to the UK for abortions last year were children. The obstetrician asked how is a substantial risk defined: “Is it…

Abortion Support Network Press Release          9 June 2015   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   DoH numbers on abortion miss the bigger picture for those in Ireland   Ireland’s abortion laws continue to harm women   The 2014 abortion statistics published by the Department of Health today show a slight increase in the number of women…

Although the number is slightly up — a 0.95% increase compared with the 5,469 in 2013 — the long-term trend shows a decline. The number of these abortions was roughly 9,000 in 2004. And in 2013 these numbers reached the lowest in any year since 1969. “Amsterdam and Brussels have clinics where they speak English and…

Mara Clarke is highly critical of Irish legislation regarding abortion. “I think the abortion law in Ireland is completely unfit for purpose. Ireland exports its abortion problem.”

A podcast about politics, science and the intersection of the two (also any random nerdy shit that catches our attention). Intro music by Rob Moore (@rob-moore-8 on Soundcloud). In this month’s episode: Abortion in Ireland and the Abortion Support Network Cuts to mental health services Sexuality and genetics CERN and US science funding A very…

“At the end of the day, restricting abortion doesn’t stop it. It just doesn’t. It just stops safe abortions.”

Anja felt that ASN’s basic premise was “brilliantly straightforward and no nonsense – the kind of organisation that placed a lot of trust in its volunteers.” Anja can’t recommend it highly enough. When I ask why, she enthuses, “to challenge yourself, to learn something new, to lend your particular expertise to a cause that you care…

“Women with money can have abortions, and women without money have babies or—and I’m not fucking kidding—they drink bleach,” said Mara Clarke, the founder of the Abortion Support Network, an abortion fund that helps Irish women travel to England to safely terminate their pregnancies.

“Is it the flagrant contempt for women inherent in Irish abortion law that gave the discussion at Too Loud a Silence its edge?”