Vincent Browne, the C Case and the ongoing abortion cover up

Last week I was a guest on the popular TV3 programme, Tonight with Vincent Browne, to discuss Ireland’s pro-life laws, and the potential rift arising in the government on the abortion issue.

Abortion campaigners have spent the last two months growing ever more apoplectic at the efficacy of the advertising campaign produced by Life Institute/Youth Defence. Now they are furious that politicians are responding to the huge volume of phone calls opposing abortion they’re receiving from the public. The concept of democracy is as alien to these self-styled ‘pro-choicers’ as the recognition that an unborn baby has rights and is deserving of compassion and protection.

On the Vincent Browne show, they argued that the time for debate was over, and that the people should not be allowed to decide Ireland’s abortion laws in a referendum. When I pointed out that the evidence indisputably showed that abortion was never medically necessary, and that what abortion campaigners – including the Labour party – seek is to legalise abortion-on-demand, they didn’t disagree.

It was a robust discussion, but there is nothing new in that, though I felt Browne’s own personal convictions were pretty clear (he spoke at an Action on X meeting earlier this year, calling for abortion legislation). Browne raised the issue of pregnancy following rape (as he usually does when discussing the abortion issue) with Patrick Buckley of the European Life Network, who responded that we should protect both innocent victims in these difficult circumstances.

On this subject, I began to talk about the ‘C’ case – where a young woman became pregnant following a brutal rape – and everything changed. It became immediately obvious that the abortion supporters on the panel did not want this matter discussed. They repeatedly signalled to Vincent Browne to intervene, and he did, on the wholly flimsy and quite ridiculous pretext that I had “”intervened”” in the discussion “”on a false premise””. We then went to a break.

Why do abortion campaigners want to cover up what happened to the young girl in the C case? Why do they get hysterical if the truth about what happened in that case is about to be revealed? And why do these supposed champions of women’s rights have such a markedly callous and cold attitude to Miss C and what she endured?

We’ve had many requests since the TV3 programme to provide the facts of the C case. Here’s what I was about to say last week before Vincent Browne closed the discussion down:

In 1997 Miss ‘C’ was a young Irish girl who became pregnant following a brutal rape. She had been taken into care to protect her from the rapist, but social workers then insisted that she was suicidal as a result of the pregnancy and wanted an abortion. When her parents opposed the abortion they became the subject of a vicious media campaign. Miss ‘C’s baby was aborted in a clinic in Britain.

It was a hugely contentious and tragic case which dominated the headlines for days. In the years that followed abortion campaigners repeatedly used Miss ‘C’s case to demand the legalisation of abortion in Ireland.

But then, twelve years later, Miss ‘C’ spoke out. She said that she had never requested an abortion, and that she had wanted her baby to be given up for adoption. Here’s what she said:

Miss ‘C’: “The nightmare still continues with me going to England to have the abortion. I remember flying over on the plane with social workers to have the abortion…”

“I didn’t understand what was happening ….I thought I was getting the baby out.”

Pat Kenny: “You thought there would be a living baby there?”

Miss ‘C’: “Afterwards yeah. Then I remember waking up from the abortion and screaming and screaming and crying with the pain so they gave me another injection to fall back to sleep, well I don’t know, I fell back to sleep afterwards. I woke up then and I was in no pain so I asked for the baby and they told me there was no baby . . .

“I wouldn’t have wanted to keep it; I would have put it up for adoption or something. No I wouldn’t have wanted to keep the baby but I would have liked for it to be put for adoption ..””

“I still, still to this day I’m still suffering. I went to get a death certificate done for the baby. I named her Shannon. So, like, that was pretty hard for me to do as well. I went away for a week and I did that. That was pretty hard for me to do as well. But I had to have some dignity to say that that child was still there . . .

“I’ve tried to kill myself. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to kill myself. But I have a little five- year-old son now so he’s keeping me, he is the best thing that has ever happened me now . .”

Once Miss ‘C’ had spoken out, she was never mentioned again by abortion campaigners. She didn’t suit their agenda anymore. That’s to be expected; this is an industry that uses the vulnerability and suffering of women to further their own cause on a regular basis.

But the cover-up has been appalling. There has been no inquiry into the behaviour of social workers and others involved. No-one has been brought to task for arranging an abortion for a minor without her knowledge or consent. There have been no apologies to Miss ‘C’ – or to her family – for the trauma and suffering endured. And, as we saw on TV3, there is a rush to censor when the story of Miss ‘C’ is being told.

But despite the best efforts of abortion campaigners, truth has a way of coming out eventually. The shocking truth of what was done to Miss ‘C’ and her family in the name of ‘choice’ is now being revealed.