Category Archives: Uncategorized
“Mary Still Boards The Ferry”
An Open Letter to Facebook
Not being believed was almost worse than being raped again.
Consensual sex and rape: It’s really bloody simple.
Draft General Scheme of the Protection of Maternal Life Bill 2013
Draft General Scheme of the Protection of Maternal Life Bill 2013
Risk of loss of life from self-destruction
Provide that
1. A person shall not be guilty of an offense under….when a medical procedure referred to in… is carried out by a register medical practitioner
at an appropriate location at which mental health services are also provided and in relation to such mental health services at least one of the psychiatrists referred in this head is employed.
one obstetrician and two psychiatrists have jointly certified that in their reasonable opinion
there is a real and substantial risk of loss of the pregnant woman’s life from self-destruction and this risk can only be averted by medical procedure in the course of which or as a result of which unborn human life is destroyed.
one obstetrician and two psychiatrists have revived the opinion referred to… and certified that they are of the same opinion.
2 At least one of the psychiatrists refereed to in… shall be a perinatal psychiatrist.
Thank you to @curtainqueen for her screen shots which enabled me to type up the draft bill from #vinb.
1+2+1+2= 6.
And after the Minister for Health only on Monday denied that women would have to face 6 drs.
It is unworkable and the College of Psychiatrics of Ireland stated they would not take part in such compulsory assessments.
This is farcical and I can’t see any Dr wanting to put a person who is in such dire mental health through such a process. If you think this is absurd then I urge you to contact your TDs on this issue. The Abortion Rights Campgain have a draft letter you can use which you can find here: http://www.abortionrightscampaign.ie/2013/04/22/suicidal-women-should-have-to-see-no-more-that-two-doctors/
New Secular Parents Group
One of the hard things about bring up your children with no religion or leaving them to figure it out for themselves as they got older, is that it can leave them with out a sense of community which other children may experience.
Also due to how our communities are still often arranged around parish lines it can happen that children don’t meet and get to know other children who have no religion. Getting to be be around other kids for whom this is the norm is a good thing. It means they know they are not alone or that weird and there are other families like theirs who don’t go to church, temple, mosque or meeting hall.
My own kids have no religion, they both currently self ID as agnostic. They were the first children ever enrolled in their school with no stated religion. Back then over 10 years ago there were no Educate Together schools close enough to make it an option. There are still too few Educate Together schools but it’s changing, but there are still challenges esp as such children move into secondary school.
It is great to see more parents working for change and supporting each other.
One of these initiatives is the Secular Parents Group. They are aiming to connect families, so parents can share with each other and run events were kids can meet other kids like them.
Their first event is coming up shortly.
Survivors of symphysiotomy exception bill accepted.
It was almost a decade a go that the then Minister for Health Mr Micheal Martin promised there would be a review of the procedure of Symphysiotomy in Irish hospitals.
Last night saw a bill accepted by the Dáil, which removes the time limit for those women who were abused and left suffering for the rest of their lives so that they can now seek out redress. Many women didn’t know what had happened to them, it was their first child. They were failed by the hospitals and often their own GP over the years who didn’t treat them properly or explain what was done to them.
This was done to over a 1,000 women and about 200 remain still. Why was it done?
Contraception was not legal here until 1984, and there is a limit to the number of C sections a woman may have, so to get around that symphysiotomy was used.
Contraception was banned as Ireland was considered a Catholic country.
Again catholic dogma resulted in substandard of care of women in Irish Maternity hospitals leaving them in agony.
Why did women put up with it? Because they were told to, often the term to offer up your suffering would be used when it came to ‘women’s issues’ and ‘The Curse’. To this day Irish women are hesitant to talk about OB/Gyn issues and reproductive issues, this needs to change, we need to be better informed and to share our stories.
The Survivors of symphysiotomy, did not give informed consent, they were not told which procedure and why and the repercussions of it. I am glad the bill has been accepted and more people know of what happened, when I first wrote about symphysiotomy 3 years ago most people had no idea what it was, hopefully now we are aware we will try and make sure that women living here in Ireland never suffer such abuses again at the hands of health care professionals.