Women seeking post-abortion counselling doubles in Cork (Ireland)

Irish Times ^ | July 16, 2019 | Kitty Holland Social Affairs Correspondent

[Morgana]

The number of women seeking post-abortion counselling at the largest dedicated sexual health clinic in Cork more than doubled last year compared with 2017, according to its annual report.

The Sexual Health Centre, which has operated in the city for more than 30 years, provided 157 sessions of post-termination counselling last year, compared with 77 in the previous year.

Some of those coming for counselling had abortions up to 20 years ago, said director of services Catherine Kennedy.

“For us there were a number of things happening last year where people really opened up a lot more about crisis pregnancies, terminations, sexual health and their concerns about all these, and to talk about them. There was obviously a lot of coverage around abortion with the referendum, people were telling their stories and talking about difficult decisions and their impact on them. Difficult decision

“Women and couples weren’t coming only about recent terminations, but also about terminations five, 10, 15 or 20 years ago. There was a lot of coverage of fatal foetal abnormalities. It can be a very difficult decision to have a termination in those circumstances and people came for counselling about that.”

There was a steady increase in demand for crisis pregnancy counselling too, from 110 sessions in 2017 to 141 last year.

[Morgana]

We tried to warn them.

[allendale]

One critical piece of post abortion counselling. If you ever manage to have children, never ever tell them that you had an abortion. They will never look at you the same knowing that you killed a sibling.

[libertylover]

Some of those coming for counselling had abortions up to 20 years ago,

If I had killed someone for no good reason 20 years I'd still be bothered by it too.

Kind of like slavery. It was more convenient (and cheaper) to have slaves than thousands of employees.

In both cases they just pretend that they're not really people and justify it that way, unless they have a conscience.

[victim soul]

Never put any kind of “adult” burden on innocent children. NEVER

[bgill]

Imagine that. Guilt over being a murderer.

[100American]

I attended a meeting with my ex who had an abortion at 15 and she as well as the other women there had some strong testimony that there is indeed a residual impact from that which is portrayed as a “simple” procedure that has no lasting impact

These women were devastated and this was years or even decades later