Tag Archives: feminism
They want to keep us Ignorant.
#Repealthe8th is an #LGBT issue
I am delighted to have helped with an OP Ed by the Abortion Rights Campaign in this months GCN on why #Repealthe8th is an #LGBT issue.
This was published after I traveled to Galway to be part of a discussion on this very issue as part of Galway Pride Festival.
The wonderful @sharmander_says @Sharrow_ie and @Feckinq speaking at the @galwaypridefest reproductive rights talk pic.twitter.com/vZUljxrVFs
— Siobhán (@WellNowUniverse) August 18, 2016
I got to meet a so many people, who had a range of sexualities and gender identities and I got asked to sign a cast.
I you want to know more click through to this months CGN issue and to page 16.
4 years ago
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/09/26/the-abortion-aircoach/
This popped on on my memory feed on Facebook, 4 years ago I took part in this photo op, which was for the 1st March for Choice. We have come a long way as the preparation for this years March for Choice (on the 24th of September) is in full swing.
If someone had of told me then, there would be donuts, people clamoring for jumpers, Farmers for Choice, a Fantasy Footy League and a growing number of pro choice TDs, I would have found it hard to believe.
We have come a long way in 4 years, and that is due to all of the hard amazing work people have put in to the Abortion Rights Campaign, putting in hours with skills they have, sharing those skills and learning new ones as we keep pushing for a referendum.
I am very proud of what has been achieved so far, but there is so much more work needing to be done. See you at the March starting at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square from 1.30pm. 
Throwback Thursday: Someone you know
I wrote this 11 years ago.
Back then I did talk about being prochoice online on forums and communities, I didn’t disclose I was ‘Someone’
So many people have come forward in the last few years, it is becoming clear that ‘someone you know’ has had an abortion.
Gloria Steinem and #repealthe8th
I was delighted to see images on my twitter feed of Gloria Steinem posing beside the Repeal Projects jumpers and the AimsIreland T shirts.
https://twitter.com/Harmonica26/status/756831226682568705
AIMS Ireland secretary @sineadredmond with @GloriaSteinem, who knows we need to #repealthe8th! pic.twitter.com/hNTZcZvvJo
— AIMS Ireland (@AIMSIreland) July 22, 2016
But I wasn’t one bit surprised. Ms Steinem was one of the Founders and Editors of Ms Magazine and it’s debut issue in December 1972 featured 52 women stating “We Had an Abortion”
This action followed on from the French & German Actions of June that year: the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur Published the Manefestio which was orchestrated by Simone de Beauvoir and was sign by 343 women and the Stern Magazine cover is wonderful and 70 women came out about having had an abortion.
abgetrieben Abtreibung 1971_24 Schlagworte:Zeitschrift, Presse
All these actions happened before I was even born, but I knew that if women in Ireland are to have the right to an abortion when we need one, then just like the women in France, Germany and the USA some of us were going to have to go public with our stories. Which is why I chose to start telling my story, which by a quirk of fate was also published in Le Nouvel Observateur
But I was just one person back in 2013 but soon other women started stepping forward, and when I was asked to take part in the X-ile Project it was something I could not refuse.
Women in Ireland have started to come forward to ‘come out’ (as Panti Bliss recently put it) about their abortions, we have done so follow the footsteps of many other brave women, and Gloria Steniem is one of those women. She has shared her story about having to get an illegal abortion.
So I will be keeping an eye out for Gloria Stenism on the Women’s Podcast, I am looking forward to what she has to say about #repealthe8th, I don’t doubt she agrees that we need Free Safe Legal and local abortion services in Ireland.
We've a brill advice ep of @ITWomensPodcast coming soon including advice from Gloria Steinem & other #soundwomen pic.twitter.com/JtImyRDXgd
— Roisin Ingle (@roisiningle) July 22, 2016
How did we go from legalizing Contraception to a constitutional ban on Abortion?
Myth Busting: Rape and Birth
Guest Post
I am delighted to have a guest post by Ruaidhrí, who can be found on twitter as @Lamhfada and wrote this rebuttal of one of the appalling tweets he saw today.
Ruaidhrí Mulveen is from Galway and has studied psychology in NUI, Galway and QMU, Edinburgh. He’s (mostly) worked in health and social care
https://twitter.com/ProLifeLegend/status/740327234045628416
The state of this guy. Excuse me while I have a little rant.
1) Oxytocin is a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger in the brain. Neurotransmitters don’t “heal” anything and they especially don’t heal the psychosocial trauma of rape via some unknown mechanisms in childbirth
2) Oxytocin is involved with bonding and attachment. It’s also involved in aggression and in childbirth is involved in contractions. Oxytocin modulates the impact of all social stimuli across all emotions-it increases aggression for example http://
3) If giving birth reduces trauma through oxytocin (which as the above points say, seems unlikely) then we should observe a massive difference across all mental health diagnoses in people who’ve given birth, which I’m not so sure is the case. Also wouldn’t it impact upon things like post-partum depression?
4) The claims this “pro life legend” make are either lies, or well meaning distortions of bad science. Either way that’s all the anti-choice, pro 8th amendment people have- lies and distortions, however well meaning they think they are.
There’s going to be a referendum to #repealthe8th. Expect the desperate untruths like this to continue. It’s largely the same crowd who were behind the no campaign for the marriage referendum and remember all the lies and nonsense they had? It’s going to be worse in the coming referendum.
Thank you Ruaidhrí for writing this rebuttal and allowing me to have it as a guest post. We will see a lot of myths, misinformation and lies as we work to #repealthe8th, which is why informed and factual pieces like this are important.
Myth Busting: Abortion and Breast Cancer
So one of the other claptrap things which get said is that abortion increases a person’s risk of breast cancer; this is false.
There is zero connection between having an abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer.
There is how ever a connection between breastfeeding and lowering the risk of breast cancer.
http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/breastfeed_hist
Breastfeeding can lower breast cancer risk, especially if a woman breastfeeds for longer than 1 year. There is less benefit for women who breastfeed for less than a year, which is more typical for women living in countries such as the United States. There are several reasons why breastfeeding protects breast health:
- making milk 24/7 limits breast cells’ ability to misbehave
- most women have fewer menstrual cycles when they’re breastfeeding (added to the 9 missed periods during pregnancy) resulting in lower estrogen levels
- many women tend to eat more nutritious foods and follow healthier lifestyles (limit smoking and alcohol use) while breastfeeding
Beyond breast health protection, breastfeeding provides important health benefits to the baby and helps the bonding process.
So people who say that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer are assuming that a woman who has an abortion doesn’t already have children and hasn’t already breast fed.
The published stats from the NHS in the UK show that
54 per cent of those having terminations last year were already mothers
So people who say that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer are assuming that a woman who has an abortion won’t go on to have have children children later in life, when it’s right for them to do so and maybe they might breast feed
Yes breastfeeding is best for a baby, and it can lower the risk of breast cancer, but “My Body My Choice” is not just about continuing a pregnancy, it is also about breast feeding.
Sometimes continuing a pregnancy is not the best thing for a person, sometimes breastfeeding is not the best thing for a person, some times it’s just not possible for a range of reasons and thank heavens we do have formula, we do have that Choice.
Anyone who says there is a connection between abortion and breast cancer is in my opinion being willfully ignorant of the medical facts, and of how people live their lives.
I had an abortion, I also have two children, both of whom I breastfed, all of those things were my choice about what I did with my body, and all of those choices should be respected and not used to scaremonger or tell people what they should do with their body.
The basics of intersectionality
When you read or hear a discussion being had by certain group of people about being oppressed and what they struggle with, stop and think before joining in.
Don’t disrupt a discussion being had by gay people & allies saying but poor straight people have to Deal with X.
Don’t disrupt a discussion being had by bi people & allies saying but poor gay people have to Deal with X.
Don’t disrupt a discussion being had by people of colour & allies saying but poor white people have to Deal with X.
Don’t disrupt a discussion being had by people with disabilities & allies saying but poor able people have to Deal with X.
Don’t disrupt a discussion being had by people struggling with poverty & allies saying but poor middle class people have to Deal with X
Don’t disrupt a discussion being had by trans people & allies saying but poor cis people have to Deal with X.
Don’t disrupt a discussion being had by women & allies saying but poor men have to Deal with X.
Yes the capitalist patriarchy is shit for just about everyone, but you don’t get to disrupt the conversations people are having about how it is shit for them, with how it is also shit for the persons shitting on them.
People how are effected by a particular axis of oppression have to have space to talk about how it effects then, to find solidarity, to know they are not the only person this happens to and to find a way to talk about it amount themselves and then to be able to articulate it to others and then fight for the changes needed.
When someone is talking about something which happens to them which doesn’t happen to you, listen and learn, don’t jump in with #notall[insertgroupwithprivelge]. We to listen and learn to gain greater understanding and compassion.
Yes please do start a parallel conversation, or better yet bring up issues which do need to be addressed, but off your own bat not as a reaction to and disrupting a discussion which is already happening. It’s hard enough for folk to talk about what happens, with out having to defend having those discussions in the first place.
When any victim group speaks out, listen, don’t pick on semantics don’t tone police, listen. If it makes you uncomfortable good such thing should. If the generalisations piss you off and they should then be angry at the people who contribute to the crappy culture we are in, rather then target the hurt people struggling to express themselves.