Tag Archives: feminism

This Revolution is being Broadcast….

April 6, 2016 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

This morning I had to as part of one of my college modules deliver a 2 minute oral presentation on a topic of my choosing. I had chosen 5 reasons to Repeal the 8th as my topic, but given recent events decided to do 5 facts about the abortion pills.

“Good Morning, I am here to tell you two things and five facts. ”

I raised my right hand up with with raised fingers and then my left with five raised fingers. Then lowered my right and and ticked off with my fingers on my right both things.

“The first thing I am going to tell you is that I am angry, very angry and that anger is why I am not going to talk about the topic I indicated to our lecturer I am going to instead in light of the court case in Belfast, I am going to talk about the abortion pills.

The second thing I will tell you is that, some of what I am about to say may be illegal, it may break the 1995 abortion information act, but as no one has ever been prosecuted under the act and the abortion pills were not considered when it was created I don’t know for sure. ”

I then lowered my right and and raised my left with all fingers raised, curling one after the other as I ticked off each fact starting with my index finger.

“The first fact is that the pills which are know as the abortion pills are legal for that use everywhere in the EU bar Ireland and Malta. The have been legal in France from 1988, which means that in 1992 if Miss X the 14 year old who was raped had of lived in France she could have been prescribed the pills by a dr and the pregnancy ended in 24hours, instead of facing court injunctions, traveling and national uproar.

The second fact is that the pills are legally used everywhere in the EU bar Ireland and Malta to end a pregnancy in the first 10 to 12 weeks of a pregnancy. This means if Migrant Y had of been in another EU country when she discovered she was 8 pregnant from rape, she could have been she could have been prescribed the pills by a dr and the pregnancy ended in 24hours. Instead due to the 8th amendment she was forced to continue a pregnancy she did not want, had medical treatment she did not want and was forced to have a C Section.

The third fact is the pills are part of health care, if you are undergoing chemotherapy and the mandatory test you do before you start your scheduled dose show you are pregnant the chemotherapy is stopped. This Happened to Michele Harte, she took the hospital in Cork to court to get an abortion to continue her chemo and was denied. Eventually while very ill she travelled to the UK for an abortion and came back to continue her chemotherapy. In any other EU country bar Ireland and Malta you can be she could have been prescribed the pills by a dr and the pregnancy ended in 24hours. Michele Sued the HSE and won, but died from her cancer soon after.

The fourth fact is these pills are prescribed to women all over the country by maternity hospitals and units when they have had a incomplete miscarriage. They are prescribed the pills by a dr and fill the prescription, take the pills at home and what is left of the pregnancy is ended in 24hours.

The fifth fact is that if the young woman in Belfast, who has been given a suspended sentence, had of being living in another part of the UK in Scotland, Wales or England, the use of the pills would have been legal, she would have for free been prescribed the pills by a dr and filled the prescription, taken the pills at home. If she lived in the Republic of Ireland she could have been given a sentence of up to 14 years”

At this stage I folded down my thumb creating a fist of solidarity and kept it raised.

“I am angry and today I stand in solitary with the young woman in Belfast, with the 10 women a day who travel to Ireland to the UK to have an abortion and the many others who can not afford to travel and risk 14 years to import and use the abortion pills at home.

I am Janet O’Sullivan, I am a spokesperson for the Abortion Rights Campaign, and if you want to hear me talk more on this, I will be on Community Radio Castlebar, 109.2fm at 5:30pm. This Revolution is being Broadcast.”

I am still angry, but anger is an energy, it’s fueling a lot of us and we will use it to Repeal the 8th amendment and bring in the abortion rights which we need.

Activism and Agitation

Cis Het Patriarchy is everywhere

March 25, 2016 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

Cis Het Patriarchy is everywhere, it is and even when we become aware of it’s impact and strive to change our thinking and behaviors, it can be hard to see how embedded it is.

It is so much so that both Cis and Hetrosexual are assumptions we make about people. They are actually labels, but they are unthinking applied in a manner which to make them ‘the norm’. If we really want to not make assumptions about people we have to start with trying to not automatically applying those labels to people.

And we need to look at our use of language and learn where it comes from, how it can be oppressive and even an micro aggression.

Microagression are important, some times they are verbal some times not, some times they are the words we unquestioningly use when talking or writing.

One of the things hard things about trying to be an inter-sectional feminist is trying to figure out my own assumptions and prejudices, which are due to the culture and society we live in.

The big acts/utterances of isms are easier not to do the the micro aggression of isms, esp when I’ve not looked at them or had them pointed out to me.

Thankfully I have learned a lot over the last 20 years. But I still ‘check myself’.

One of the ways I do is to interact and read the writings of other people who are also striving to be ‘less shit’ at being an intersectional feminist, one of those people is Aoife O’Riordan and her post recent writing is

Homophobia: letting go of the Capital H.

Well worth reading in my opinion.

Activism and Agitation

TV shows which dealt with abortion

March 19, 2016 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

So this morning on my twitter feed there was a tweet by Donald Clarke with a link to his latest piece on the Irish Times Entitled Xena is gay: what next, Marriage?

The piece looks at how in the medium of TV gay* presentation has changed and be come more normalized and frequent but that women having abortion is not part of the stories show and how

Visibility matters. More than anything else, everyday encounters with gay people changed society’s attitudes to the marriage debate. When, as has happened recently, women calmly – without pretending to shame – discuss their own abortions in the media, chinks open up in the information cordon that has grown up around this fraught issue.

The people who commission TV programmes and commercial movies also need to show some guts. Viewers are not so fragile as advertisers and programmers pretend. They can be trusted with the real world.

The thing is, abortion has been part of the stories told via the medium of TV.

1989 the British sitcom Birds of a Feather, in its first season aired the episode Women’s Troubles, which dealt with Trush and an unexpected pregnancy, in which one of the two leads, Sharon chooses to have an abortion. It shows the two sisters supporting each other, despite them being in very different places in their lives when it comes to continuing a pregnancy.

Also in 1989 Degrassi High aired, a show about going to High School in Canada, by episode 2 of it’s opening season it had a student dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and what decision to make. Heather talks it out with her twin sister, who doesn’t agree with her choice but end the end supports and accompanies her to the clinic.

The Degrassi franchise was rebooted and Degrassi: The Next Generation also has had an abortion episode. The story was spit into two parts and aired at the start of 2004. Accidents will happen follows Manny’s process of choosing what to do, talking to her friend, her boyfriend and getting the support of her mother who bring her to the clinic.

Of course Sex and the City dealt with abortion, the episode Couda, woulda, shoulda aired in 2001 and deals with a range of the reproductive stories of the 4 ladies. Miranda is dealing with an unexpected pregnancy, Charlotte struggling with possible infertility and both Carrie and Miranda share their abortion stories.

2001 saw our very own Fair City have an abortion story line, Kay McCoy was happily pregnant when she and her husband get a fatal fetal diagnoses of , trisomy-13. Kay opts to travel to the UK to have a Termination for medical reasons. That was 15 years ago and needless to say the producers got hammered in the press and RTE had complaints lodged and vast tracts were written by anti abortion campaigners.

Abortion was also part of the stories in 6 foot under, orange is the new black, Grey’s Anatomy in 2011 dared to show more then ever before when Cristina Yang had her abortion, of course Girls had an abortion episode.

And most recently Scandal November 2015 had Olivia Pope choose to have an abortion which was counter pointed by Milly’s fillabustering in the US Senate to keep planned parenthood’s budget as non optional, echoing the 11 hours Wendy Davis spent on her feet to try prevent abortion restriction legislation in Texas.

So it is not that abortion doesn’t feature as a story in TV shows, but I think that the episodes are seen as too controversial at times to discuss.

Sure the Fair city Wikipedia lists all of the other scandals and issues which the show has covered but Kay’s abortion story and having to travel is barely listed and not dated like the rest of the entries. If anyone is an wiki editor and wants to make that addition the link is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_City#Social_realism

So it does happen, even in an Irish context there is precedent. we have come a long way from when the brave people from Fubar Films made 50,000 secret journeys and the struggle to get it aired.

I do how ever echo Donald’s call to have more programs made which do cover abortion and in such away that shows how normal it is, but how abnormal having to travel is; but also how the 8th amendment is detrimental to all maternal care and is more then just about abortion.

*[Gay only as bisexual representation is still far behind, I really must get around to writing about that]

Activism and Agitation

International Womens’ Day 2016

March 8, 2016 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

When I wrote about the 100th anniversary of International Womens’ Day 5 years ago, there was very little about it anywhere. There certainly wasn’t a Google Doodle, there weren’t images being shared on Facebook and Twitter.

We have come along way in the last 105 years, we have come along way in the last 5 years.

We now have more women in the Dáil then ever, the silence around reproductive rights is being broken, the women esp young women are not hesitant to call themselves feminists.Women are sharing about the stuff they put up with, which we shouldn’t have too.

But we have far to go, to #repealthe8th and undo the years of cultural sexism in our society. This was written the year I was born, 40 years ago and much of this work still needs to be done.

I hope to live for at least another 40 and now more then ever I am optimistic that we will see the changes, we all need for a better, fairer, kinder society.

Happy International Womens’ Day! Onwards and Upwards!

Activism and Agitation

Why I am going to the March for Choice 2014

September 17, 2015 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

This will be the 4th Annual March for Choice, it happens on the Saturday closest to 28th of September which is Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion.

Two years ago I took part in a Speak out which happened before the March For Choice. It was huge for me, I told my story to the people gathered there in the room, I listened to other women tell their stories, we laughed, hugged and cried together, and it helped me to go on to tell it to others.

Last year more women spoke out and shared their stories, it is a wonderful space to be in, I hope we can organize more spaces and opportunities like this across the country.

Attending the March For Choice last year having been so public about my abortion was so very very moving. I was surrounded by 100s of people who didn’t think I had done anything wrong, and thought that I had nothing to be ashamed of.

I had many people thank me that day, I had people hug me, I had people quietly come up to me and say ‘Me too!’ and I hugged them. I am looking forward to being at this years March for Choice. To be able to hold my head up high with the support of so many people had been trans formative. I hope to see you there.

Activism and Agitation

Back to the grindstone and some news

August 26, 2015 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

This summer has flow in and it’s been a productive one for me but not so much when it comes to my writing here; but that is going to change.

I have lots of things which I am looking forward to sharing and writing about esp after I took a week off from almost everything and didn’t even sit here at my desk at all.

So to that bit of news; today I signed contracts with Cork University Press for my small contribution to The Abortion Papers Ireland: Volume 2, which is being Published by Attic Press.

This makes me so joyfully happy, Attic Press has a wonderful list of gender studies, women’s studies and Irish feminist texts. Attic Press published The Abortion Papers Ireland edited by Ailbhe Smyth back in 1992, Volume 2 has been edited by Aideen Quilty, Sinéad Kennedy and Catherine Conlon making it a joint collaboration between University College Dublin, Maynooth University , Trinity College Dublin.

The Abortion Papers Ireland Volume 2 will be published this comming October.

Worlds Beyond

Worlds Beyond Podcast Ep 01 interview with Paul Anthony Shortt

July 3, 2015 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

Yes once again I am bitten by the podcasting bug. Worlds Beyond will be an irish podcast about all things Geek, Gamer and Genre Fiction related.

The 1st episode is with Paul Anthony Shortt who’s book Red Skies the second in the Lady Raven series was published this week. His is an Author, Gamer, Father and self confessed feminist. We talked about his books, ghost busters, why stories matter and how he will be at Octocon 2015.

Red Skies is available to down load now from amazon as a kindle release.

You can find Paul Anthony Shortt online in the following places

Website: http://paulanthonyshortt.blogspot.ie/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PAShortt

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6476977.Paul_Anthony_Shortt

Activism and Agitation

The Myth about Teenagers and Abortion

June 25, 2015 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

The Minister for Justice on a recent interview on Newstalk, was asked about the UN’s Economic & Social Council’s recommendation to have a referendum on abortion.

http://www.newstalk.com/Justice-Minister-says-her-priority-is-not-on-holding-an-abortion-referendum

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights report states that Ireland must reform it’s abortion laws, including having a referendum however the Minster stated that she thinks the focus should be on crisis pregnancies and lowering the number of teenage crises pregnancies.

The Minster said that doing so would take education on the matter, however it is Minster Frances Fitzgerald who needs to be educated, on how teenagers from Ireland who access abortion in the UK are the minority of the women who travel. These statistics are easily available, the Irish Family Planning Association has them up on their website. https://www.ifpa.ie/Hot-Topics/Abortion/Statistics

Graphics by @jamesfbrophy

Teenagers made up less than 8% of women that travelled last year, and the numbers for the last 12 years show that teenagers have not been the majority.

This is a myth which we must bust, that it is irresponsible young women who have abortions. When the facts are that no contraceptive method is 100% effective and the most recent statics from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service show that more than half of women (54%) who use their services (including women travelling from Ireland) have already given birth.

Even if we did have contraception which was 100% effective there would still be unintended pregnancies, as those who perpetuate sexual abuse do not check to make sure their victims are using contraception and no woman should have to be on contraception just encase they become a victim of sexual abuse.

Even if we could wave a magic wand and every pregnancy would be an intended pregnancy, there are still reasons why abortion maybe needed, due to the risks to a woman’s health not just her life and in cases of Fatal Fetal Abnormalities when a woman does not wish to continue the pregnancy.

We do need a referendum to Repeal the 8th amendment before we can bring in any Abortion Rights, so that women no longer have to travel to the UK, often being separated from family when they need support.

We do need education about all of the many reason’s why abortion is part of health care.

We do need education about how early access to abortion is best for women and the majority of abortions carried out in the UK are before 10 weeks, with the abortion pills which women should be able to access here via their GP.

We do need education to stop the spread of the absurd myth that it is mostly teenagers who access abortion services, esp by our Ministers.

Activism and Agitation

The Myth about Teenagers and Abortion

June 25, 2015 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

The Minister for Justice on a recent interview on Newstalk, was asked about the UN’s Economic & Social Council’s recommendation to have a referendum on abortion.

http://www.newstalk.com/Justice-Minister-says-her-priority-is-not-on-holding-an-abortion-referendum

Graphics by @jamesfbrophy

Teenagers made up less than 8% of women that travelled last year, and the numbers for the last 12 years show that teenagers have not been the majority.

We do need education about all of the many reason’s why abortion is part of health care.

We do need education to stop the spread of the absurd myth that it is mostly teenagers who access abortion services, esp by our Ministers.

Activism and Agitation, Uncategorized

Painting a different picture

February 9, 2015 jcjosAdmin Leave a comment

They often say a picture is worth a thousand words and certainly pictures help to set the scene, the tone and context of an article. Which is why sometimes images which are paired with articles about abortion be it in the news, magazines or online can be problematic.

Often the go to image is that of a pregnant person. We have all seen them the headless pregnant woman who is 30+ weeks pregnant, is sometimes called the preggo belly shot. Sometimes the image is just a front close up the preggo belly or other times the image is in silhouette, eliminating the woman from the image entirely.

The problem with those sorts of image it that it distorts the discussion of abortion before it even begins. The vast majority of abortions happen before 9 weeks, when person really has no outward signs of being pregnant at all. They can often be unfortunately paired with a really good pro choice piece.

Some online news outlets have gotten better at the image they choose, from using airplanes, pictures at protests rather then the preggo belly image or one of a distraught women. But how do we bring about a change in what pictures are used?

Often simply asking works. Campus.ie recently published an article on Repealing the 8th amendment. It was by Tomás Heneghan and a great read but alas it had been paired with the preggo belly image. So Tomás and Campus.ie were asked over twitter could the image be changed; the suggestion was made for the article to have instead a stock image of a positive pregnancy test. And I’m delighted to say it was changed and it is a worth while read. http://campus.ie/surviving-college/politics/why-we-need-remove-eight-amendment

We are now starting to see a new type of image being used on articles about abortion, that of women telling their stories, which clearly makes the article and the discussions focused on the woman, her rights and her choice. Which is why the photograph of Tara who shared her story of travelling staring into the camera brave, defiant and unflinching is such a powerful one.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tara-they-shouldn-t-have-control-over-my-uterus-1.2089490

This means we are seeing abortion being discussed a very different way in the media in this country, one which no longer promotes stigma and shame, and this creates the space to have different conversations which we have not been able to have before. There will be no going back, we can only hope that our legislators can find a fraction of the courage Tara and other women have had to do and set in motion the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment.