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Juliet Cuthbert Flynn and Carole Bridge, speaking during a meeting of the Human Resource and Human Development Committee of Parliament on Wednesday
Member of Parliament Juliet Cuthbert Flynn on Tuesday afternoon laid bare her personal story, admitting she had an abortion in the US when she was 19, as she continued her fight to have legal termination of pregnancies.
She made the admission during a meeting of the Human Resource and Human Development Committee of Parliament, which is reviewing recommendations made for legalisation of abortion.
The review was prompted by a motion brought to Parliament by Mrs. Cuthbert Flynn last year.
"I never had any remorse for what I chose to do that day. None. I chose life at that moment because my life was on the line," she declared Wednesday, prompted by a submission to the committee by Carole Bridge, who recounted being diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor but deciding to ignore her doctor's advice to have an abortion to save her life.
Mrs Bridge stated that she went on to have a healthy baby girl, who is now an adult, and that her tumor went away.
She said she was unable to have anymore children and warned that had everyone taken the advice of their doctors, many of those sitting in the Parliamentary committee might not have been born.
"We cannot rely on doctors telling us that for possible medical, emotional and mental health reasons, we should murder our children. Are we to understand that because someone may be born disabled that they are therefore disposable and not worthy of life? Are we to understand also that because a pregnancy happens under less than ideal conditions, that we should not allow that person the chance to live?" she contended.
However, Mrs Cuthbert Flynn took issue with the testimony of Mrs Bridges, arguing that people's situations vary.
She revealed that she had suffered from a similar condition to Mrs Bridge and that her life would have been in danger had she gone along with the pregnancy.
"I chose my life over something that I was not certain about; I did not plan on it and because I was told that I could not have gotten pregnant. I went on to have two more children. It doesn't mean as you state that you chose life because you are for life. I think people who have abortions, it's not that they're not for life why they choose to have an abortion, it is possibly their circumstance why they chose to have an abortion, and that person was me at age 19," she explained.
Mrs Cuthbert Flynn insisted her abortion was in an effort to save her own life since her condition was so severe that she had been passing out frequently on the track as her brain tumor pressed on her optic nerve, causing severe headaches and could have caused her to go blind.