Sir, – Niall Behan of the Irish Family Planning Association is right when he states that until the Government acts to implement the ABC judgment, Irish women will continue to travel outside the State for medical treatment to save their lives (September 6th).
At the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) we have direct experience of women with medical conditions who, at great financial, emotional and physical cost, have had to travel to England in order to access treatment which they should be legally entitled to receive at home.
And yet, the sick women who travel abroad to access care are not the full story. Last year BPAS was contacted by a pregnant woman with cancer requesting an abortion which she had been refused in Ireland.
Ultimately, she was too poorly to make the journey to us. Doctors need to know they can intervene in these cases without threat of criminal prosecution, so no Irish woman will ever have to suffer in this way again. – Yours, etc,