I was reading this, this morning and those 3 words jumped out at me. I am pretty certain I have never seen those 3 words in that configuration before. Here is where they came from and the context.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/20/on-abortion-we-need-spirit-of-67
When, this week, you read a headline saying, Ireland to legalise abortion; or see a statement from the Catholic church saying “Irish abortion reform is a ‘licence to kill innocent babies'”, you should treat it with great scepticism. For a start, nobody has suggested changing the law, nobody’s legalising anything, and innocent babies have more to fear, as ever, from the Catholic church, than from any Irish abortion providers.
Nobody has suggested, even out of respect for the recently killed Savita Halappanavar, the slightest modification in the law, so that an abortion might be permitted in a case where the mother would probably die without it, and the foetus would probably die regardless. There are no new ideas, and no concessions to anybody – all that’s been mooted is the codification of a supreme court ruling, so that the abortion provision they do have is no longer just precedent, it’s actually enshrined in law.
The rest of the the piece written by https://twitter.com/zoesqwilliams explains the legal and historical back drop to the legal situation on abortion. If you like the writers of Jezebel need to brush up on the facts, please do take the time to read the rest of it.
So this morning with my coffee I find myself wondering what Irish abortion providers would look like, ok so say with a wave of a magic wand we have legislation, even the most conservative legislation along the lines with which the majority of people agree. That is abortion to protect the life and health of women including cases of rape/incest and terminations for fatal fetal complication. What happens next?
Well medical policies and procedures would have to be introduced along with guidelines and best practices and insurance policies amended as well, which is a massive amount of paper work.
Currently even with all the Drs we train in this country none of them are trained to carry the procedures needed.
This point gets made time and time again by Drs for choice and Medical Students for Choice. So even when such legislation is passed there will be a long waiting time before a woman would get the timely treatment she needed and most likely will end up with the HSE paying for her to travel and have the procedure in the UK. Like they had to do in the case of Miss D.
So would we see private clinics being set up as Irish abortion providers?
This may cause a whole new get of issues. Part of the Ruling by the EU court of Human Rights in the ABC cases was that MS C right to privacy was breached and with Ireland being such a small place I would worry that such places would be heavily picketed as the anti choice lobbists have been known to picket family planning clinics here and take pictures of people going into them. It will still be that those who can afford to go privately will have more choice and privacy and may still choose to leave the country.
Irish abortion providers, I would prefer if they were just part of the general OB/GYM services in this country, but even these services suffer from the policies and practices which have them as an add on service and not part of holistic health care for women.
Even when we have less restriction on abortion in this country there will be still so much work to be done on ensuring women and transmen have the health care they need.
Yes, and this is why I am rather alarmed when some in the Irish pro-choice movement frame the broad campaign as one to “decriminalise abortion”. Decriminalisation is necessary but only a step in the same way that legislation for X is necessary but only a step (granted, it’s a bigger step). I’ve also seen a few people call for the Canadian model to be adopted here without seeming to think it through. The Canadian model works in Canada, where there were already plenty of abortion providers before it was adopted (and where there is free universal health care). But there are parts of the US where women can’t access abortion, other than through DIY methods, even though it’s perfectly legal for them to do so. That’s not what we want here.
What come after legislation is very important. We have seen useless laws passed which really can not be implemented like the blasphemy one. I would hate to see what happens after end up being like the situation in the USA were regulations are changed time and time again putting women’s life and health at risk.