Gaza’s suffering women

Dear Sir,

Tommy Banks seeks to weaponise the deaths of 13,000 Gazan children at the hands of the brutal Israeli regime to call for an end to what he calls “unnecessary abortion” in Ireland.

Not once in his letter (The Sligo Champion May 27 th) does Mr Banks mention women, who are being killed in their thousands in Gaza.

It is estimated that almost 60,000 who are pregnant are malnourished and suffering from dehydration.

Many are forced to give birth without even the most basic medical care.

Mothers are undergoing caesarian sections without anaesthetic.

Women are giving birth in the streets, or, for some who make it to hospital, in beds already soaked with blood from previous deliveries.

For those who survive, feeding their babies is next to impossible as 90 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women face severe food poverty.

Gaza is in the grip of a fullblown reproductive health crisis, as the miscarriage rate skyrockets and emergency hysterectomies are performed in the most dire of circumstances.

To ignore the suffering of the women of Gaza while attempting to use the deaths of their children to restrict the hard-won reproductive rights of Irish women is shameful.

True reproductive justice demands that women must be free to make their own decisions about pregnancy without interference, and free to give birth and raise their children in safety, whether they live in Gaza or in Sligo.

Yours faithfully,

Bernie Linnane, Lyn Brookes, JoAnne Neary Leitrim for Choice Dromahair, Co. Leitrim.