OPEN LETTER TO MARTIN McGUINNESS
Dear Martin McGuinness,
I'm a constituent of yours from Derry and I'm writing to you so that maybe I can get you to understand how upset and distressed you made me and many other parents feel last Friday.
You say you are a Catholic, saying that you are not in favour of abortion in every case. But then you have the nerve to say you try to be the ‘best Catholic you can be’ and that you support abortion where the child has a serious disability: a child like my little girl, Lily Rose.
You are singling babies like my daughter out for abortion, for no other reason than they have a disability. It is the worst form of discrimination. It breaks my heart and it breaks the hearts of so many parents whose children have died because of a life-limiting disability, like anencephaly or Trisomy 13.
I had written to David Ford on the 5th November, requesting a meeting with him to discuss her experience and why I felt legalising abortion would not help mothers in my position. In response, Mr ford refused to meet with me and dismissed my concerns, hiding behind the rhetoric of 'choice':
‘It is clear from your letter that [abortion] would not have been a choice you would have made [...] My consultation is primarily about seeking a change in the law to enable those women who wish to choose a different path to yours to do so.’
Like David Ford, you don't seem to want to hear our stories. Neither you nor David Ford seems to want to recognise that our children's lives had value and they were so deeply loved. The time we had with them was a gift we will treasure forever.
Lily Rose had Trisomy 18, but she lived inside me for 32 weeks. She kicked and moved and reacted to my voice, and she was loved for every minute by me and my family. That was her life, and she was my amazing, beautiful, special little girl.
She wasn't a 'sort of life' as Justice Minister David Ford so hurtfully said. She was my child, and she will live on forever in our hearts.
I want you to understand how devastating it is for me to hear you say that other babies have a right to life, but that my daughter Lily Rose could be aborted, simply because she had a disability.
At the hospital I was told my baby was 'incompatible with life' and told to 'go home and Google' Trisomy 18. Parents need real information and more support, not abortion.
I'm writing this letter because I have had enough: I have had enough of feeling so upset and distressed every time I hear you and David Ford and others describe my little girl as a 'sort of life' or 'incompatible with life' or saying she it would have been a good 'choice' to abort her.
I've had enough of my baby girl being talked about as being less worthy than other babies - as being a suitable candidate for abortion.
I'm asking you, and David Ford, to do the decent thing and meet with families who know that abortion is not a humane response to a mother’s heartbreak when her precious baby has been diagnosed with a life-limiting disability.
Yours sincerely,
Gemma Bradley