Webchat with Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network, TUESDAY MARCH 10, 12.30pm

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

We're pleased to announce that - following a suggestion made by MNers on this and other threads - Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network will be joining us for a live webchat on Tuesday 10 March at 12.30pm.

Mara Clarke is a mother, a freelancer, and the founder and director of the Abortion Support Network, which (in its own words) 'helps women from Ireland and Northern Ireland travel to England to gain access to safe and legal abortion'. ASN does not directly campaign on abortion-related matters; its aim is to help those who wish to access abortion facilities but do not have the financial means to pay for travel costs or for the procedure.

Please join us on Tuesday at 12:30 to discuss the Abortion Support Network's work and related issues. As ever, if you can't make it on the day, please post your questions in advance and do remember our webchat guidelines.

I don't have a question though I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for the work that you do to give women from NI and Ireland a lifeline.

I do not have a question either, but admire what you, enormouse and TheBaby are doing to help women who need it.
It's the 21st century and still, in countries that are not by any stretch of the imagination, third world, women are being denied bodily autonomy.

That is scary.

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Hello

Mara's here at MNHQ now and we'll be getting going in a moment.

Hello everyone, and thank you so much for having me, especially to Enormouse for being so public about her experience in travelling for abortion. 1 in 3 women in the UK have terminations but so many do so in silence. The stigma is even worse in Ireland and N Ireland, as you can imagine. Anyway – I’m super chuffed to be here on Mumsnet. I’m a mum myself and have always felt that access to safe maternity care, affordable childcare, and access to the full range of sexual and reproductive health services, INCLUDING abortion, are interlinked.

@Vivacia

I have recently watched footage from the US where people protest outside of abortion clinics and it occurred to me how much I would like to support women and girls wanting to visit the clinic but coming up against these bullying tactics.

What can the average person do to support your work and your clients, especially those of us who can not provide financial support?

Hi Vivacia, thanks so much for joining us and for your question. I am from the US and I can tell you it gets pretty ugly. I was once spat upon by a Franciscan Friar after dropping a woman off at a clinic, and that was in NYC! There are also protesters here in the UK, in particular outside the bpas clinics in Blackfriars and in Brighton by the group Abort67. Bpas (the British Pregnancy Advisory Service) launched a #BackOff campaign calling for buffer zones and a petition was delivered to Theresa May. It probably wouldn’t hurt to write your MP a letter!

“Free” ways you can support ASN are:

• Sign up for our newsletter at www.abortionsupport.org.uk where we advertise any volunteer organisations
• TALK ABOUT ABORTION! At the dinner table, with your friends, with your spouse, with your in-laws, and when they get older, with your kids
• Write your MP any time there is an attack on abortion laws in the UK. For instance, there’s currently something about reducing the time limit – AGAIN. Very few terminations happen between 20-24 weeks, less than 1.4%. But for ASN’s clients, it’s 8%. Why? Because they’re delayed trying to raise the money.

@ArabellaStrange

Mara, is there anything anything we can do, in order to help with campaigning to have the law changed in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, so that women don't have to undergo arduous journeys in order to access basic healthcare? Thank you for coming to talk to us today.

Thanks ArabellaStrange for wanting to help out. I know the situation faced by women and families can be enraging and activism is an excellent channel for rage! We are not a campaigning organisation but some great ones are:

Abortion Rights Campaign Ireland (ARC or @freesafelegal)
Abortion Rights UK
Alliance for Choice (N Ireland)

Are three of the top ones.

Also Amnesty International has launched their MyBodyMyRights campaign, but that's only calling for abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal anomaly

@Madrigals

Just to say I support choice and thank you for helping women to access this and for coming on to do this webchat.

Madrigals, the more the merrier!

@Enormouse

Thank you so much mumsnet and Mara for agreeing to do this.

ASN offered me support and financial aid to travel to England and I am in awe of the work they do and will always be grateful to them.

A question I have is what happens when a woman travels but is scanned as being later in pregnancy than she thinks? So she effectively enters the later stage termination bracket? What does ASN do in that situation?

Bless you Enormouse and it was so lovely to meet you last week (was it only last week?) Next time I will bake cookies without nuts! And let this be a lesson to the rest of you - women who have abortions ARE JUST LIKE US.

That’s a very important question you raise. Women in N/Ireland have very few places to go for scans and even fewer for free scans. Dublin and Belfast, fine, the rest of the country, you’re screwed. There are two serious issues about women coming at a later gestation than they thought. The first is cost – prices go up at 14 weeks, and at 19.5 weeks. And when I say “go up” I mean from £350 to £600 to £1300.

The money is the easy part. If the woman has financial need and no other way to raise the additional funds, and ASN has money in the bank (the key bit), we will fund the extra. The bigger issue is that different doctors perform different procedures on different days, so there might actually not be a doctor available to perform the later gestation procedure. We had a case where a young teen pregnant as result of a rape turned up at a clinic at 13 weeks 5 days. The doctor on duty only went to 12 weeks. She and her father had the option of travelling home and back again, either in 2 days to make it before the price increase at 14 weeks, or to find a clinic nearby that could fit them in. Thankfully, the later option was possible. But it isn’t always. Even worse is when a woman arrives and she’s over the legal limit - sometimes by as little as one day – and she has to continue the pregnancy.

I've linked to the amnesty mybodymyrights panel up thread. If anyone wants to listen to the sound bites from it.

Hi Mara,

Thanks for doing this webchat.

I was just wondering, do you have any sense of how the public in N Ireland and RoI respond to your work?

@VillaVillekulla

I'm so glad Mara's coming on here. I think ASN are an awesome charity doing such important work. I don't have a question. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the work that Mara and her colleagues do.

thank you for your kind words. Appreciation is what keeps us going on the bad days - literally. We're almost entirely run by volunteers (other than me - I've been paid part time since 2014) everyone gives their time.

@PuffinsAreFictitious

Hi Mara, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us and thank you for the invaluable work your organisation does to help women who need to access basic healthcare.

How close would a person need to be to an abortion facility to be able to be a host for a woman coming over to access healthcare? And how would a person go about volunteering to do this?

Sorry, 2 questions, I know, but as they're linked, hopefully it can be overlooked?

Hi PuffinsAreFictitious, great question! Women travelling don’t often need hosting as most of the time they can travel in and out of England in one day. The women who need hosts are usually later in pregnancy, which requires an overnight stay. Hosts need to live within 30 minutes via whatever method of transport you have at your disposal to one of the clinics women are going to – bpas Liverpool, South Manchester Private Clinic, MSI Manchester, bpas Richmond, MSI Ealing, bpas Streatham, and MSI Brixton. And to find out more, email volunteer[at]abortionsupport.org.uk

@fiddlybulb

Hi Mara

Can you explain the legal situation around abortion in Northern Ireland? How has it come about that women there have to travel to the mainland for abortions, even though it's part of the UK? I remember there being some controversy a few years ago when Labour were in government - Harriet Harman being accused of selling out the women of Ulster by doing some sort of deal over a piece of legislation that required the votes of NI MPs - but I'm hazy about it.

Hi Fiddlybulb, your handle is appropriate to the question! The abortion law in N Ireland is quite fiddly indeed. We’re not a campaigning organisation so I tend to send questions on the law to the experts but basically. A woman can have an abortion legally – IF she can prove the pregnancy will pose a serious and permanent risk to her life and her health. But there’s no guidelines as to what that means. And the draft guidelines that were leaked a few years back focussed on criminalisation of doctors who perform illegal abortions and women who access abortions illegally. In practice, it’s virtually impossible for women to access abortions, full stop.

There was a time in 2007 that it looked like extending the 1967 Act to N Ireland was in the cards but there was never a vote (and yes, there were supposed dodgy dealings). Then devolution happened (and I’m REALLY talking out of my death here) and criminal matters went back to NI. Including abortion, which is covered by the 1861 Offenses Against the Persons Act. And last May the High Court reaffirmed that women from NI can’t access abortions on the NHS, even if they travel to England.

Thank you for answering my question Mara. .

Actually it was one of my biggest fears on the day. What would happen if I had the dates wrong and it pushed me into the higher price bracket and I couldn't afford it. What would I do to get the extra money? Would I have to travel back? It was a source of huge stress. It is wonderful to know ASN would have been there.

That poor girl. How awful to go through that and be confronted with that additional stress.

Mara. Thank you for the work you are doing. I grew up in NI and well remember the fear if my withdrawal bleeding was only a day or so later than normal, and that was being on the Pill!

I too have had an abortion, in my case for anencephaly (a fatal foetal abnormality) but luckily I was living in England at the time so it was a swift and smooth process (a big thanks to all the staff at Southampton General). Related to that, can you tell me what is the current legal position for abortions for foetal abnormalities which do not directly threaten the mother's health?

@PetulaGordino

thanks so much for coming on mara, and to enormouse for requesting the webchat

i think you and your colleagues are doing an amazing thing and it is shocking that women are not afforded the right to choose in NI and ROI. it's such a nonsense that it stops abortion in those places - it just means women's lives being endangered or they are forced to travel a long way from home, family and friends and spend money they shouldn't have to in order to end a pregnancy.

please could i ask, what was it that brought you to founding ASN?

Ah, the age old question! If you were a journalist, my response would be: “That’s the wrong question. It’s not what brought me to found ASN, but why, in 2009, it needed to be founded.”

But the real answer is more roundabout and unfortunately a bit long winded! It all comes down to this article from the Village Voice: www.villagevoice.com/2002-07-02/news/emergency-landing/. I can still see the illustration that came with it, a cartoon of heavily pregnant women parachuting over NYC where I lived at the time. Reading about women forced to travel hundreds of miles to get abortions suddenly crystallised all my feelings around abortion. Suddenly, the issue was no longer about abortion. Instead it’s about fairness. When faced with an unwanted or non-viable pregnancy, women with money have options and women without money have babies. Or, as we’ve seen occasionally, do desperate things, like drink bleach or take all the pills in their medicine cabinet. I volunteered with the organisation in the article in NYC for 3 years, and after we moved here, I volunteered with Abortion Rights UK for a bit and then started ASN.

Really admire the work your organisation does. Having grown up in Rep Ireland, I remember being horrified with the original 'X' case. What that poor girl had to go through was truly awful. And so little has changed in the Republic since.
I really hope that day the choice will be there for all women.

@TeWiSavesTheDay

Mara, I read yesterday that SF had changed it's policy and was open to allowing abortion in some (very strict) circumstances.

How long do you think it will be before there is a real choice for women in Ireland and NI?

Yeah - "Sinn Fein drops opposition to abortion" according to The Guardian! Read the fine print! Sinn Fein has said they will support abortion in cases of fatal foetal anomaly. Ireland needs to Repeal the 8th Amendment - the one that gives a foetus equal right to life to a woman. I am hopeful the law will change - hopeful - but I'm also a realist. After the cases of Savita, Ms Y and the recent case over christmas where a brain dead pregnant woman was kept alive over the wishes of her family and still there's been no change. I hope for change, and act to help the women who are punished by these laws in the meantime.

@VillaVillekulla

I'm so glad Mara's coming on here. I think ASN are an awesome charity doing such important work. I don't have a question. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the work that Mara and her colleagues do.

Hi VillaVillekulla

Thank you very much! We are a tiny charity doing our best to help with an enormous problem.

Thank you for coming to talk to us.

What made you set up the Abortion Support Network? If it's not too personal and you're comfortable sharing, can I ask if there is there a personal story behind it?

@Baddz

You do such vital work....how can people donate?

Baddz, that’s my FAVOURITE thing to be asked! www.abortionsupport.org.uk/donate/
We take pounds, euros, dollars, kroner, whatever you got. You can donate by standing order, GoCardless, PayPal. Heck, we’ll even take cheques! Any amount is appreciated. Last year we gave grants ranging from £20 to £1200+ so we’re serious when we say “every little helps!”

@LineRunner

I think lots of us have asked a similar question upthread, so may I please ask another one?

Am I right in thinking that the restrictions in NI result in many women tending to have later abortions than they might otherwise have - and that this would be entirely avoidable by giving women in this part of the UK the same abortion rights as the rest of the UK?

LineRunner, I love it when people do my work for me. Yes, this is something that is seldom mentioned. In England, less than 1.4% of all abortions are done between 20-24 weeks, but with our clients it's closer to 7-8%. We also have a number of women who miss the 14 w mark, where abortion goes from £350 to £600. (prices are estimate - different clinic has different rates).