Child Abuse continues in Ireland

Readers may remember the infamous ‘C’ case in 1997, when a young girl of thirteen years of age was made pregnant through rape. She was taken into the care of one of the then Health Boards and, against the wishes of her mother and father, the High Court here granted permission to the Health Board to bring the pregnant mother to England for an abortion. In the last few days it has been reported that the young girl, now in her twenties, says that she was unaware of what abortion was at the time that her baby was killed. She remembers that having woken up following the abortion, she called out asking for her baby, but the abortion clinic workers told her that there was no baby.

It is shocking that she was not even aware of what abortion was when she was brought to an abortion facility by Health Board social workers. Nor was she allowed to see her parents before she was brought by the social workers (acting on behalf of the Irish State) to the UK. But it is now abundantly evident that the reason for this was to ensure that the abortion was carried out. She says she wished her baby had been allowed to live, and that she thinks of her aborted child all the time.

A somewhat similar case has occured since then, when the then Midland Health Board, acting on behalf of the Irish State, was responsible for bringing another young girl – who became pregnant while in their care – to the UK to have her twenty-three-week-old baby killed. This is state-sponsored child abuse of the most brutal kind - how many decades will it take for those responsible to be called to account?