Thread by @chickpee_

This is a thread on how the 8th amendment has directly affected my family and why it needs to be repealed. When my mother was 16, she fell pregnant with her first child /1

She was in an abusive relationship, her family had abandoned her and she was left to fend for herself and her baby alone. It was 1995, and having been raised in a strict catholic family she knew the risks of having a baby out of wedlock and especially at such a young age /2

This was a child she never planned on having. At the beginning of her second trimester, my mother contracted meningitis. It was life threatening, she was told if she lived she would never walk again but under the 8th amendment she was refused medical treatment /3

The doctors told her that any treatment they would give her would harm the baby and they were not prepared to do that. She was 16, pregnant and in intensive care fighting disease that would most likely kill her all for the purpose of keeping a fetus alive /4

Due to my mother’s poor health, when her baby was 8 weeks she was told that it would die inside her. Her body wasn’t strong enough to care for two people /5

Just like the doctors said, her daughter died inside her and my 16 year old mother was forced to carry her dead baby for 3 more months until it was delivered prematurely /6

After the horrific birth it took months for my mother to learn to walk again, the disease had almost left her paralyzed and still to this day she suffers with chronic pain and emotional scarring because of how long she was left untreated /7

If the 8th amendment didnt exist, if abortion was legal in Ireland, my mother would not have had to go through this. Her life would have been prioritized /8

A 16 year old girl would not have had to carry her dying baby inside her for months after she was refused the treatment she desperately needed /9

To think that my mother could have died, that the woman who raised me and cared for me and thought me how to plait my hair was merely reduced to a human incubator makes me sick to my stomach /10

No other woman should have to go through what she did. My mother and I will proudly be voting to #repeal on the 25th of May helping to put an end to this, I encourage you to do the same.
#repealthe8th #Together4Yes