Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/22/health/ireland-abortion-referendum-travel-intl/index.html
Traveling abroad to get an abortion04:09
'Irish abortions happen; they just don't happen on Irish soil'
Updated 0858 GMT (1658 HKT) May 22, 2018
(CNN)Julie O'Donnell was 29 weeks pregnant, on a flight from Dublin to Liverpool that was packed with rowdy holidaymakers, tears streaming down her face.
When she got into a taxi at Liverpool Airport, the driver asked the distraught Irish woman where she was headed.
"You have to say you're going to Liverpool Women's Hospital, and they know exactly why," O'Donnell said. "It's incredibly awkward."
Abortion is illegal in Ireland -- except when there's a "real and substantial risk" to the mother's life -- and 3,000 women like O'Donnell travel some 200 kilometers (124 miles) across the Irish Sea each year for a termination in the UK.
Three weeks earlier, a routine scan revealed that her baby had anencephaly, a fatal defect in which part of the brain and skull isn't fully formed. The obstetrician gave O'Donnell two options. She could either continue with the pregnancy, which would probably result in a stillbirth, or travel abroad.
The 29-year-old was handed a scrap of paper with the name Liverpool Women's Hospital scrawled across it and sent on her way.
"I can honestly say I've never felt so alone and abandoned," O'Donnell, today a 38-year-old office manager and mother of three, said of her experience in 2010.
O'Donnell and her husband were in shock after the scan. "We couldn't believe we were going to have to go and organize all of this ourselves," she said.
Come May 25, Ireland will go to the polls in a referendum on whether to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which says a fetus has an equal right to life as the mother.
A yes vote would open the doors to legislation allowing abortion up to 12 weeks gestation -- and later in cases in which there is a risk to the mother's life or the fetus is not expected to survive.
A no vote would keep Ireland's abortion laws, some of the strictest in the European Union.
Anti-abortion activists argue that the Eighth Amendment has saved thousands of lives and encouraged compassionate alternatives to abortion, such as perinatal hospice care when the baby is not expected to survive or adoption for women in challenging circumstances.
"So many women have told us that the time it took to plan an abortion in England was the time that they needed to change their minds," said Anne Murray, spokeswoman for the anti-abortion group Pro Life Campaign.
The Yes Campaign, which is demanding a repeal of the amendment, says it has instead created a culture of shame, inhibited medical professionals and forced women to travel for abortions later in their pregnancies.
"We have a medieval legal provision for sexual reproductive health care in Ireland, and we have not faced this reality," said Dr. Mark Murphy, a general practitioner in Dublin and lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland.
Currently, Irish women caught breaking the law -- and the doctors who assist them -- could face up to 14 years in prison. What's not illegal, however, is getting an abortion overseas. On average, nine Irish women travel to England and Wales every day for the procedure.
Often, they'll travel to Liverpool or Manchester and return the same day. These two English cities not only offer the cheapest flights due to their proximity to Dublin, they can be explained as weekend "shopping trips" or "football games" if their partner joins, according to Donagh Stenson, associate director of marketing at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a charity that facilitates Irish women's access to abortion providers across the UK.
"Irish abortions happen; they just don't happen on Irish soil," Stenson said.
She recalls a particularly frustrating case in which a woman contacted her who was eight weeks pregnant and in the final stages of cancer treatment. Irish doctors wouldn't end the pregnancy but also wouldn't continue her cancer treatment.
"I never knew what happened to her," Stenson said. "I don't know whether that lady died before birth. She certainly didn't travel to us; I know that."
Stenson says her clients range from just 12 years old to women in their 50s. She said the majority are in their first trimester and opt to have a surgical termination, which is immediate, rather than take an abortion pill and risk it taking effect on the long journey home.
The combined cost of travel, accommodation and procedure can range from a few hundred dollars in the early stages of pregnancy to $4,000 later in the term. For women from rural areas, those with disabilities or migrants juggling visa restrictions, the process becomes yet more complicated and costly, Stenson explained.
Julie: Flight to Liverpool at 29 weeks
Julie O'Donnell was in the later stages of pregnancy when she discovered that her baby had anencephaly. Her abortion involved an induced labor.
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