Ireland abortion referendum: Two women who made different choices about their pregnancy

Voters go to the polls in Ireland on Friday for what will be the country’s sixth referendum on abortion in 35 years. There are perhaps few issues so intensely personal and yet so political too. This time the vote is on whether to repeal the eighth amendment, which enshrined in law the equal right to life of the unborn child alongside the rights of the mother, in effect making abortion illegal apart from when the mother’s life is at risk.

Tonight we hear from two women. One of them is Siobhan Donoghue. She and her husband discovered their baby would not survive, so they took the journey to the women’s hospital in Liverpool. We also talk to Vicky Wall. Her daughter was diagnosed with something called life limiting-condition, but she chose to go ahead with her pregnancy full term. The baby was stillborn, or “born sleeping”, as she describes it.