Dr. Gilda Sedgh:

I thank the Deputy for her comments and questions. Before I discuss what we do not know and how useful it would be to know more, I acknowledge that for the women who travel to Britain for an abortion and admit that they are from Ireland, we have statistics for their ages and the gestational age at which they have an abortion. A very small share are obtained by adolescents and they are mostly performed within the first 13 weeks. I work in an organisation the mission of which is to conduct policy-relevant research and to support evidence-based policies. From that perspective, yes, it is unfortunate that we do not have direct evidence within Ireland on the reasons Irish women have an abortion, the numbers of Irish women who have an abortion and the circumstances in which they have them.

I have mentioned that Ireland seems to be an anomaly with respect to the proportion of abortions that are unsafe. We do not know how many of the clandestine abortions are performed by a trained person. Even among those who have an abortion that is medically safe, we do not know what proportion of women who have an abortion experience stress related to the stigma they experience having had an abortion or the stigma they are afraid they will experience. I have mentioned a review of 14 papers that comment on the pervasiveness of that experience among women who have had an abortion. In the absence of this evidence directly from Ireland, I hope evidence from other countries in the region and the developed world can help us to get a sense of the circumstances experienced in Ireland. To the extent that the Deputy's question is also a comment, I appreciate her comment that we need evidence to inform policies both here and throughout the world.