Tag Archives: health

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HSE unoffical DNA record to be destroyed.

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So the HSE kept all the new born screening cards also know as the heel prick test, the one which has information such as date of brith, name and a spot of blood from every child born in Irish hospitals from 1984. And opps they shouldn’t have.

They got given out to by the data protection commission and are looking at only keeping them now for 10 years and destroying the old ones. You can how ever request your own one or that of your children by filling in a forum but it must be done by the 31st of March.
The forum can be dl from here http://newbornscreening.ie/ or you can ring 1850 24 1850 to request they be posted to you.

Activism and Agitation

The Abortion Rights Campaign Website is Live

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http://www.abortionrightscampaign.ie/

And the Abortion Rights Campaign Website is Live.

Did you ever think you would see the day that there would be a .ie with the term abortion in the site address? I don’t think that even a year ago it would have happened which shows how much has changed. Every time I see the logo with the words ‘Abortion Rights Campaign’ I nearly have to pinch myself to make sure it is real.

When that name was first suggested, it was considered maybe a step to far but then we had the Masters of our maternity hospitals come out and say that Abortions are preformed in this country in their hospitals every year and that too many women are forced abroad due to lack of legal clarity.

We need clear and concise abortion rights and that is what the campaign is about. And the most recent polls have shown us that the majority of Irish people support the right to an abortion for a range of reasons and most of which will not be covered by XCase Legislation, so even after that legislation becomes law there will be still more to do.

But this is the start and having the courage to have the term abortion in the name of the campaign and as the website name, is taboo breaking and wonderful. I am happy to say I support the right to choose, the right to an abortion when needed for medical reasons, the right to an abortion for fatal foetal abnormalities and I am proud to say I am a member of the Abortion Rights Campaign.

Come join us as we work towards securing abortion rights which the majority of people in this country agree with.

http://www.abortionrightscampaign.ie/get-involved/join-the-campaign/

Activism and Agitation

GP-based care must be central to abortion law

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GP-based care must be central to abortion law.

‘How will I find a thousand euro in two weeks?” The mother of three looked at me with a mixture of panic and despair. “We have Communion coming up and absolutely no money as it is . . .”

This woman’s face stays with me. It is the face of many Irish women as they learn the cost of an abortion in England. It is a face injured by the silent bite of austerity, while already coping with a job loss or mortgage default and now an unwanted pregnancy.

Affluent Irish women have always had abortions. They continue to exercise their right to travel. However, for many Irish women the right to travel now counts for very little. It is the feasibility of travel that is important and this is substantially determined by the availability of money.

Desperation, always a feature of Irish abortion, is now the dominant emotion felt by many women. Ask yourself how would you access €1,000 in less than two weeks without telling anyone the reason you needed the money?

The complete absence of any of the voices of the more than 150,000 Irish women who have had abortions was a striking feature of the Oireachtas hearings last month into proposed abortion legislation as a result of the European Court of Human Rights A, B and C ruling. The lack of a public voice obscures the fact that abortion is not a rare experience for Irish women.

I often wonder how many GPs actually do referrals for abortion,
legally they can, but how many actually do, or do they push women towards positive options or the IFPA, but is it know that over 1/3 of women who travel to the UK contact BPAS themselves with out going through services here first.

Activism and Agitation

Rape, Abortion and Emergency Contraceptives

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Last month a poll was released via the Sunday times which showed that 74% of those who took part stated that if a person is pregant from rape they should the right to an abortion, that is an abortion here in Ireland.

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And then we had the interview of Micheál Martin leader of Fine Fáil by http://www.thejournal.ie/ in which he states;

He also said that he would not favour widening legislation or changing the Constitution to include cases where a woman has become pregnant as a result of rape.

“Rape is a particularly difficult one. We do have options today that we didn’t have before in terms of the morning after pill and so forth,” he said.

Which says to me just how disconnected he and his party are on the reality of this issue.

With X Case legislation still not even a published bill after 21 years,
and with all the scaremongering about ‘floodgates’ and women lying about being suicidal to obtain an abortion, I would fear as to what would be said if we were currently trying to legislate for the right to an abortion if a person has been raped.

Would women be told well prove you were raped and to wait for their rapist to be prosecuted, when currently from when a person is charged with rape it could be 18months before the first day in court. I worry that there is a vested interest in trying to make any abortion legislation to be a series of hoops to hard to navigate and so well will continue to have 12 women a day traveling to the U.K.

The comments also show up the ignorance about the ‘morning after pill’ which I really wish we could stop calling it that as the new ones can be taken up to 120 hours later, time to start calling it emergency contraceptive, but even then it is not 100%.

Even if a person reports the rape and sees a dr with in 72 hours or even 120 hours emergency contraceptives are not 100% effective and they can still end up pregnant from that rape.

Which assumes they can get to see a medical professional who will prescribe it, that they can take it as there are women from whom it won’t be prescribed due to medical conditions and there is a barrier due to cost or having to travel or child care, or they could be in an abusive relationship were it’s just not possible for them to get away.

And that is with out going into those who go into shock and denial after they have been raped.

So the existence of emergency contraceptives does not solve the issue of people becoming pregnant after they have been raped.

I guess after all this time I am still staggered by the lack of knowledge out there about Emergency Contraceptives & contraceptives in general. I honestly think that our TDs should know better then the lack of knowledge Micheál Martin has displayed.

Activism and Agitation

Minister Alan Shatter and the absolutely irrefutable evidence

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“Does the Taoiseach intend to introduce legislation in the new year to amend the redress board legislation to extend it to those who suffered barbaric cruelty in the Magdalen laundries?

The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform now has irrefutable evidence that this State and the courts colluded in sending young women to what were then known as the Magdalen asylums. They ended up in the Magdalen laundries and were treated appallingly.Some of them have never recovered from the manner in which they were treated and their lives have been permanently blighted.

Initially in this House the Minister for Education and Science denied that the State had any involvement in this. There is now absolutely irrefutable evidence as a consequence of court records and files that have been examined in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform that the State was directly complicit in many women being placed in these totally inappropriate circumstances.”

So The Department of Justice, Equality, of which he is currently the Minister of has irrefutable evidence, absolutely irrefutable evidence of court records and files that have been examined which his dept has and has examined.

Great any chance of them being released, there Minister?

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Another XCase Date, 21 years on and still no legislation.

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http://www.thejournal.ie/twenty-years-on-a-timeline-of-the-x-case-347359-Feb2012/

6 February 1992: X and her parents traveled to England and arrangements were made for an abortion to take place in London. On the same date, the Attorney General obtained an interim injunction stopping the teenager and her parents from leaving the country or arranging the termination of the pregnancy. Once they were informed of the injunction the family returned to Ireland.

The AG’s order was based on Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, more specifically on the 1983 amendment that puts the right of the unborn child’s right to life on an equal footing of the mother’s right to life.

Whelen has since said that he had no choice but to seek the injunction as he had a duty to uphold the Constitution. He told an RTÉ documentary that his problem was “stark” after being contacted by the DPP.

This weeks has been filled so far with the abuses of women and children by the state and the church, be it children in industrial schools, children abused by priests, children put up for adoption who can not never find out their parent’s names, women put into laundries and used as slave labour or women driven abroad to have children and to have them adopted.

We have had 90 year of being our own country and honestly it seems to be little more then a litany of abusing and ignoring those who need compassion and care.

We still have people who are being mistreated in asylum holding places, old people’s homes, children’s care homes, and those in care due to disabilities.

In all my born days, despite the struggles watching the Dáil proceedings today, for the first time I find myself wanting to live in a different country.

Activism and Agitation

The X Case: 21 years ago, 2 referendums, 1 supreme court ruling still no Law.

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Last year the Journal.ie did a timeline of the events surrounding the X Case you can find it here: http://www.thejournal.ie/twenty-years-on-a-timeline-of-the-x-case-347359-Feb2012/

Today is the 4th of February 2013, here is what happened 21 years ago:

4 February 1992: The victim and her parents decide to travel to the UK to undergo an abortion. The family informed the Gardaí of their decision and asked whether the foetus could be tested after it was aborted to provide proof of the paternity of the accused in the rape case.

The Gardaí then asked the Director of Public Prosecutions whether such evidence would be admissible in court. The DPP liaised with the Attorney General Harry Whelehan.

The parents of the 14 year old child, were talking her to the UK for the good of her health and life and were trying to make sure the man who had raped her would not go unpunished.

That was 21 years ago and we have had 2 referendums and 1 Supreme court ruling and X Case has not been legislated for and there is still no law.

The current government have legislating for X in their program for government but again we are seeing more delay tactics.

Cabinet update on abortion law delayed | Irish Examiner.

Dr Reilly has said he hopes the measures will become law by July.

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Women in Ireland are breaking the law to have medical abortions

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Seizures of the abortion pill have been on going for the last 4 years in this country and women are ordering the medications and using them to end their pregnancies at home.

In doing this they face criminal charges for importing the medication with out a license and the charge of self preforming an abortion and that under the 1861 Offenses against the Person Act can carry a sentence of a life time in prison.

Claire ordered drugs online and had an abortion at home. This is her story… | Irish Examiner.

Her abortion will never appear on a list of official figures, but she does exist, it did happen and her story deserves to be told.

I get pretty concerned about this, I know that the abortion pill works well and a woman will haven an induced miscarriage over 1 to 3 days and it only works in the first 9 weeks of pregnancy but it still has risks and should only be taken and used with medical supervision which women in Ireland are not getting and if anything goes wrong it is difficult for women to get medical help.

Still this piece is brave and taboo breaking and it is wonderful to see that we are starting to hear the real stories of women, the choices they making and the risks they are having to take in a country which holds an embryo has the same rights as we do.