Donegal woman Dominique Meehan has joined a pro-choice panel to highlight the effect of the Eighth Amendment on survivors of rape.
Dominique Meehan
The 25 year old Letterkenny woman spoke today ahead of the 6th annual March for Choice in Dublin this Saturday, organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign.
Dominique was raped in 2015 at a gaming convention in Dublin. Her rapist was jailed for 12 years last June.
Dominique said: “I represent a quarter of all women in Ireland who have been raped and who have to deal with even the thought of an unwanted pregnancy.
“I told my parents that if I’m pregnant we’re going to England. How is that fair for anyone in my situation, knowing that my own government would look at me as a criminal because I couldn’t carry my rapist’s child?”
Speaking at today’s pre-march press conference, she said she suffered nightmares in the days after her rape, dreaming that she was pregnant.
Dominique said: “In my dreams I watched my stomach swell, I had morning sickness, I even had back pain. I was terrified, more than I have ever been during my attack.”
“That fear is utterly debilitating. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I was feeling my stomach every day to see if it was swelling like it did in my dreams.”
“I told my parents that if I was pregnant I needed to go to England. How is that fair though?
“Can you imagine someone in my position couldn’t be treated by the HSE, that treated me so well, in Ireland they couldn’t treat me here.”
Linda Kavanagh, Spokesperson with the Abortion Rights Campaign, Brid Smith TD, Krysia Lynch of AIMS Ireland, and Dominique Meehan, rape survivor and activist. Photo: David Thomas Smith.
Dominique said she had taken six pregnancy tests before being admitted to the psychiatric unit.
“Everything came out negative, but the stress of believing and thinking to my very soul that I was pregnant still managed to send me into the psych unit. I was suicidal.
“If there were options in Ireland other than having a baby to just send it into a foster system or killing it on my own with alcohol or my own suicide, then I would never have needed to be admitted into the acute psychiatric unit at all.”
“We can’t carry on like this, giving rape survivors no option but to carry their rapist’s child no matter the psychological consequences to the rape survivor.”
Photo: David Thomas Smith.
The March for Choice will take place on Saturday 30th September at 2pm, beginning at the Garden of Remembrance, Dublin. The March will coincide with the annual Global Day of Action for Safe and Legal Abortion.
The theme of this year’s march is “Time to Act”, which the Abortion Rights Campaign says is a comment on the upcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment and the importance of action for the thousands of people denied abortion services in Ireland over the years.
Time Travellers for Choice, a group of historical and vintage costumiers representing through dress the many eras of time during which women in Ireland have been forced to wait for their rights. Photo: David Thomas Smith.
ARC spokesperson Linda Kavanagh said: “The reality is we have an instrument of violence against women written into our constitution, violence that is enacted every day on all pregnant people in Ireland. The Eighth Amendment has caused untold misery and damage, and it’s time we removed it once and for all.”
Ms Kavanagh said the organisation’s judgement on the announcement of a stand-alone referendum on the Eighth Amendment will be reserved until the wording is made known to the public.
“We have all waited long enough to finally be allowed to make decisions about our own bodies, it’s vital that the government get this right,” Kavanagh said.
Other speakers at today’s conference were Krysia Lynch, Chairperson of AIMS Ireland (Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services) and Bríd Smith, the first TD in Ireland to share her abortion story.
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September 27, 2017
“We have all waited long enough to finally be allowed to make decisions about our own bodies…”
How is it so difficult for people to understand the contradiction in this statement reiterated over and over again by prochoice/pro abortion activists? How is it only 1 persons body to be considered when their is another human being growing inside of these women’s bodies? A human being whose heart begins to BEAT just 3 weeks after conception, when most women don’t even know they are pregnant yet! Why aren’t these innocent, helpless human beings having a right to their lives!!!!
September 27, 2017
@ERIN…’these women’ you refer to may not know they are pregnant but they know they have been raped!!!!! And if you took your head out of the pro-life rhetoric for a minute to understand your own arguments you would realise how complex an issue this is.
September 28, 2017
I am not sure what you mean by ‘pro-life rhetoric’, excuse me for my ignorance. I am not dismissing or ignoring the trauma, stress, everyday ‘hell’ women who are victims of rape go through on a daily basis. I just don’t understand how killing a human being through abortion is seen as the right ‘support’ for these women. How is abortion the answer???
September 29, 2017
Erin – its the answer if they don’t want to be pregnant by their rapist. Being pro choice means acknowledging that women should have a choice about what happens to their own bodies. The 8th ammendment denies women the right to make decisions about their own bodies. Rape survivors, after already been violated, are currently criminalised for terminating any subsequent forced pregnancy. Furthermore, the potential life of the foetus, or the contents of the uterus in the early stages ( which is when the vast majority of terminations occur) is in no way equal in quality or character to the actualised life of a living woman or girl. You can chose to believe otherwise for your own body ( your choice) but you don’t get to make that decision for those who subscribes to logic and medical science, and human rights for women.
October 1, 2017
women want the same rights everyone else has. I understand where you’re coming from on the point of the idea of killing a human is wrong, I had the same understanding. But, even if the foetus is a child from conception, they don’t have more right to life than anyone else- if a child was in hospital and needed a blood transfusion to survive the state couldn’t legally force anyone to go through with the procedure, people, including babies die every day because people are unwilling to be organ donars. The reason for this is respect of the person’s bodily autonomy-it may save lives but it violates people’s autonomy to force to be blood donors or organ donors etc-to do otherwise would be to treat them as things, so it is not mandatory. At the moment, anyone who is pregnant does not have the same right to bodily autonomy, and also a foetus has MORE right to life than a born baby. All we are asking for with abortion rights, is the right to bodily autonomy and to be treated and seen as humans, not vessels. That is why we fight for the right to make decisions over our own bodies, the same as everyone else has. Hope this helps with understanding.
September 30, 2017
@Erin
Dear Erin,
If the ‘human being’ as you described it can live outside of a woman body at 12 weeks or less, take it out and let it live. If it can’t and it is dependent of this woman body to live then it is not another human being. It is a part of this woman and she should have a choice what she wants to do with her body. If you don’t want abortion- don’t get one, but don’t tell other people how to live.