Dr. Abigail Aiken:

That is a very good question. When it comes to this graph, it was by no means the case that every woman was completely happy about the abortion. There is often a great mix of emotions and most women, as we can see on the graph, recorded more than one. In response to the question about the counselling made available, the Women on Web service itself has an online email support where women mostly ask questions about, for example, whether what they are seeing is normal and whether they need to get care. They also sometimes ask questions about how they are feeling and whether it is normal to feel the way they do. Women on Web does not, however, provide a full-on and comprehensive counselling service for women. One of the important issues raised here by Deputy Durkan is the fact that women rely on Irish health care professionals for this kind of counselling and I do not know if it is always readily available to them. We can see that many women are scared to talk about this, particularly if they have gone down the online telemedicine route, because of the fear of being prosecuted, reported, or even just stigmatised. What this illustrates to us is that it is very difficult under the law at present to know how to provide those services for the women who are struggling with their feelings after an abortion, even if they are in the minority. My answer then, is that these women do not have full-on counselling through the online telemedicine service and have to go to find it elsewhere. It is not at all clear that the majority are able to do that.