Sean Moncrieff: ‘My girlfriend listed all the reasons to have an abortion’
Sometimes the best we can do is to be kind, if anything that’s what being human means
Feb 24, 2018
Sean Moncrieff
Back in the early 1980s, access to contraception involved visiting a GP, whose job it was to adjudicate if you wanted them for bone fide family planning reasons; whatever they were. But not any GP: people quickly learned that some would be sympathetic, and some would run you out the door.
Then there would be a prescription and a visit to a pharmacy. But not any pharmacy; such was Ireland’s horror at the thought of sex, of talking about it, that many refused to co-operate. There were entire counties free from the diabolic poison of synthetic oestrogen or latex.