No Woman Should Choose Because of the Rent
Picture a kitchen table. There's a letter about the rent on it, and a childcare bill. There's a positive pregnancy test too. (This scene is illustrative. The numbers below are not.)
Nobody at that table is against babies. They're afraid they can't afford one.
That's the point the Pro Life Campaign has put to the United Nations this week.
In its submission to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, it says something every one of us should be able to agree on: "No woman should ever feel compelled to have an abortion due to socio-economic factors."
Read that again. It isn't a slogan. It's a floor.
Here are the numbers it puts beside that line.
In 2018, the year of the referendum, 2,911 Irish women had abortions, counting those who travelled to England and Wales and the 32 cases under the 2013 Act.
In 2025, according to the Department of Health's own annual report, there were 10,600.
The submission says population growth explains only part of that rise. It names the cost of living, the housing crisis and what it calls "the chronic lack of supports" for women who want to continue a pregnancy.
It also cites a 2023 survey of 3,000 parents in the North by the group Melted Parents NI. That survey found parents who had abortions solely because they couldn't afford more childcare. And 82% said childcare costs had affected their decision not to have more children.
Stop there for a moment. Those aren't women who wanted an abortion. They're women who wanted a cheaper crèche.
The submission says the State has been "found wanting" here. It says funding has moved away from charities that help women in unplanned pregnancies, including women facing homelessness.
It also says the HSE's MyOptions phone line, which is meant to give information on "all your options", gives "scant information" on supports for women who want to continue their pregnancy. It points to a 2022 Students for Life study and a 2024 RTÉ Investigates programme. It asks for MyOptions to be overhauled, so callers hear clearly about housing help, welfare, counselling, adoption and the Young Parents Support Programme.
None of this is complicated.
If a woman is choosing between her baby and her flat, she isn't really choosing.
If a phone line built to list all the options only really lists one, it isn't giving options.
If we can find money for every other priority, we can find it for a mother who's frightened at her own kitchen table.
So here's a question worth asking at the dinner table tonight: if the rent were paid and the crèche were affordable, how many of those 10,600 would still be here?
We'll never know the answer for every one of them. But we can make sure the next woman doesn't have to ask it.
Somewhere tonight a baby is growing quietly under a worried heart. That little one has no vote and no voice. All they need is for the adults around them to make room.
Let's make room.
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