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Former Sinn Féin MEP and MLA Martina Anderson has revealed that she underwent an abortion while preparing to join an IRA bombing mission in England, saying the decision left her emotionally broken.
Anderson was 22 in 1985 and on the run in the Republic of Ireland when she was preparing to join an IRA unit operating in England. Several weeks into the planning of the unspecified attack, she discovered that she was pregnant.
Speaking to RTÉ presenter Miriam O’Callaghan, Anderson said she chose to put what she called “the struggle” before her unborn child because she did not want to let down her comrades.
“Women like me, who had an unplanned pregnancy, and because of the circumstances that I found myself in, I put the struggle first, and I chose to have an abortion,” she said.
“It was the hardest decision of my life. It was the most painful decision in my life. It didn’t strengthen me making that decision. In fact, it broke me, but I was not for letting my comrades down.”
The former republican prisoner said she had never expected to make the episode public, but included it in her autobiography, Choosing the Struggle, because she wanted to write “with honesty, and I hope, integrity.”
Anderson said she had lived in silence about the abortion for more than 40 years.
“I’ve reached a point in my life where I do believe that perhaps, and I don’t know whether it will, but perhaps in the telling of the story, that it might make some small contribution to stopping the social and the moral shaming of women like me,” she said.
“I believe the time for social shaming and moral shaming needs to stop.”
Anderson also revealed that she later lost her fertility following a separate gynaecological operation while imprisoned at Durham Prison.
She underwent surgery to treat polyps, but the procedure resulted in the removal of her womb, permanently ending her ability to conceive or carry a child. Fellow prisoners had reportedly nicknamed the gynaecologist responsible “Dr Death.”
The operation left Anderson unable to have children later in life.
Executive Director of SPUC, Michael Robinson, said of the story: “Martina Anderson says she is going public with her story because she wants to stop the social and moral shaming of women who choose abortions. She has done that by admitting that she destroyed her child to aid a terror organisation in the bombing of civilians. Thankfully, that shouldn’t have the effect she may be expecting.”
He continued, “She says the decision was hard. She says the decision was painful. We deal with post-abortive women, so we know this, but to try and normalise a procedure that evidently hurt her is nonsensical. She has clearly been captured by pro-abortion ideology, which should come as no surprise. Abortion is violent. Anderson committed the greatest violence on the most innocent person so she could bring more violence to more innocent people.”
