Her story, which is split over several posts on the social media site due, can be read in full below:

“I’d been pro-choice my whole life and I was terrified of telling people who loved me a decision that I wholly knew was right for me. I didn’t have any money to travel, and I didn’t know any alternatives. I didn’t know if there was anyone I could take to, or any support.

“I spent endless time searching online for ways to have a home abortion. I did all sorts of desperate things to myself, to no avail.

“I worked evenings after college, and double shifts to save. I cried constantly and couldn’t eat. When I finally had an abortion I was terrified of the blood. I had agonising pains in a hotel room. I thought I was just going to die. I didn’t even mind, sadly.

“When I got home I went to a clinic. I said I thought something was wrong with me. The doctor scraped me, felt my insides, told me I’d had a miscarriage and should “be more careful”. I was careful, but that didn’t matter.

“I’ve carried that as a burden for years. A sense of shame that I didn’t deserve, that no one does. I read endless posts online about how terrible someone like me must be, how heartless. Sometimes I forget that when I talk about abortion rights, I’m talking about something that’s shaped me irrevocably.

“It doesn’t even feel like my story. Ignoring the needs of women like myself doesn’t make the problem go away, and it doesn’t make this country any safer of a place to be a woman, or a mother.”

She concludes powerfully: “The Eighth Amendment is not just arbitrary linguistics, it affects so many people you know, so many people you love.

“Irish women deserve more than this; more than being reduced to a sad figure on a website, more than another signifier of Irish shame, more than being disregarded and denied autonomy and respect by people who have never, and will never, know them.”

Kate’s post has since been retweeted 290 times, generating a wealth of support for the #Repealthe8th movement on Twitter.

And the messages of love and compassion have been overwhelming.

One wrote: “I can't even begin to fully understand what you or other women have had to do, all I know is we need people like you.”

#Repealthe8th: woman shares powerful teen abortion story in bid to challenge Irish laws