Martina Anderson abortion: 'How different might life look for ex-Sinn Fein MEP if she chose life over death?'

Interviewed on RTE radio this week ahead of the publication of her memoirs, Ms Anderson revealed she’d had an abortion aged 22, when she was involved in the planning stages of an IRA mission in England.

“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 of my life. It didn’t strengthen me, making that decision; in fact, it broke me. But I was not for letting my comrades down.

“And I went away in silence and I returned in silence, and I have lived in silence for more than 40 years.”

Responding to Ms Anderson's story, Dawn McAvoy, who leads the pro-life campaign group Both Lives Matter, said: “Martina’s own words are stark. She describes choosing to ‘put the struggle first’ and ending an ‘unplanned pregnancy’ rather than letting her ‘comrades down’.

“Her story reveals a painful chain of consequences following her abortion: secrecy, conflict with the values of the faith in which she was raised, imprisonment, and medical trauma after a botched surgery in prison led to sterilisation.

“This is a tragic tale of how ideological commitment to violence can distort the value placed on human life — even the life of your own unborn child. We may wonder what might have been different – for Martina and our national story - if life rather than death had been chosen."

IRA victims campaigner Sammy Heenan also took issue with her words.

He heard the IRA murder his father outside his bedroom window on their Castewellan farm when he was just 12. His mother having previously died, the murder left him an orphan.

Mr Heenan told the News Letter: "There are no words strong enough to describe Martina Anderson and the depth of her fanaticism for the PIRA terrorist movement."

“Over the years, we've heard countless examples of the deception and depravity that terrorists were prepared to descend to in pursuit of their cause. Yet this admission has shocked so many people.

" The fact that a woman would end the life of her own unborn child so she could continue her involvement in a terrorist campaign is almost beyond comprehension. She sacrificed her own unborn baby so a terrorist organisation could continue murdering other people's sons, daughters, mothers and fathers."

Ms Anderson was "a terrorist" and has demonstrated once again that PIRA was "simply a ruthless and depraved cult", he said.

Now she is using her childhood experiences to try and justify the choices she made "under the guise of victimhood".

He added: "This is part of a wider campaign of terrorist revisionism, designed to romanticise the so-called 'struggle' and portray those involved as driven by noble ideals rather than responsible for unspeakable acts of violence."

He recalled how the IRA murdered his father in one of "the most brutal and evil ways imaginable - as they did to hundreds of other innocent people".

"I was just 12 years old when I stood over his lifeless, bloodstained body. A PIRA terrorist entered the grounds of our farm, forced my father to his knees and shot him twice in the head. That memory has never left me."

"I didn't respond by taking up arms or murdering my neighbour. As a child, I understood that what had been done to my family was wrong, and that inflicting the same pain on another innocent family would never have made it right."

"As victims, it is imperative that we continue to challenge the glorification of terrorism and confront attempts to rewrite history. Young people deserve to know the truth. There was no honour in belonging to an organisation that murdered innocent people, devastated countless families and in this case, an innocent unborn baby."

A wide range of pro-choice parties, campaigners and organisations were also invited to comment.