Thread by @ainenicaomh

Hi Cora, abortion rates depend on many things but least of all the legal status, most of all the contraceptive availability. A regulated abortion service means women aren't vulnerable to coercion from illegal providers and importantly, have access to post-abortion contraception.

A legalised regulated service also means you can get great data on who has abortions, why they have abortions + what might be done to better serve those social groups. Scotland managed to halve the abortion rate of under 18s in just 8 years through education about contraception.

Abortion rates always appear to rise after legalisation because abortions can actually be individually recorded for the first time. But then, in countries with good access to best practice abortion care, contraception and sex ed, they drop.

You can get quite accurate estimates of pre-legalisation illegal abortion rates by looking at how many women turn up to A&E or how many women die from trying to give themselves an abortion or paying someone to do it. Thankfully in Ireland too few women die to be able to do this.

And our abortion access routes are changing. Requests to @abortionpil tripled from 2010-2016, while fewer women travel every year. Other stories about women buying misoprostol from pharmacies or turning up to A&E should also be accounted for.

No. of Irish addresses given in UK clinics - bare minimum measure of the Irish abortion rate - was unaffected by the 8th + doubled over 17 years. Meanwhile other countries who legalised had a drop - France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain. #repealthe8th #savethe8th

My question to you, with all due respect, as I've put to many anti-repeal pro-lifers, is how #savethe8th, how keeping abortion illegal and unregulated, is pro-life in anyway?

I've been uncomfortable w/ abortion my entire life. Studied repro health in college to learn how to stop it happening. Conferences, heard the best minds in the field on how to stop it happening. Interviewed an entire Scottish abortion clinic to understand from the ground up.

And no-one ever talked about restricting access to safe abortion being the answer to stopping it happening. Because we tried that. For decades. For a century. The UK 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act, the original 8th Amendment. And equivalent laws in almost every country.

So yes, with all due respect, I would love to know how #savethe8th is a prolife proposal. Because currently I am not convinced.