“It Starts With Silence” - In conversation with Richard Gosnold

Mar 29, 2021

Hosted by Alliance for Choice's Emma Campbell, we have Irish journalist and feminist commentator, Susan McKay in conversation with photographer and abortion rights activist, Richard Gosnold about his powerful and personal photo book. “It Starts With Silence” depicts his struggle to see beauty in the world, whilst knowing that he is powerless to help his wife and daughter. Gosnold and his wife were told, at twenty weeks’ gestation, that their expected baby was fatally ill. If the baby survived birth, she would suffer terrible pain, until she stopped breathing. Abortion was illegal in Northern Ireland, so Denise was forced to carry the dying foetus and wait for the inevitable. Employing photography, texts and ephemera, Gosnold powerfully communicates the complexities of his emotional state, while he reflects on baby loss and lack of access to reproductive healthcare.