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.
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.
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.
My abortion activism goes back about two decades at this stage, I used to write the Women’s Information Network’s illegal abortion information phone number 01 6794700 on the blackboards of the 6th year classrooms early in the mornings before anyone else was in.
Needless to say this caused uproar in the convent school I attended: when teachers and the head nun had an inkling it was me I was told to present myself at the office when I arrived each morning. They were going to use the absence of the number to prove it was me and someone else started chalking it on the black boards and it started to appear on the cubicle walls in the toilets in the school.
This was back before the 1992 referendum which made information related to abortion legal. I grew up in an Ireland were magazines were censored and so were UK phone books all over the country, long before it was possible to look up information on the internet. I have been pro choice having seen what family members went through in an Ireland which didn’t talk about miscarriage and treated unmarried mothers badly.
Even after the 1992 while information wasn’t censored, only drs and counselors were to give information to women who were looking for it and that is still the case to day. Before anyone could google B.P.A.S. and get information giving information verbally or a booklet or a photocopy could get you into legal hot water.
When I went to college I got even more involved in pro choice activism, I continued to act as an information point for women*. I had gotten my hands on a bunch of booklets “Traveling to Liverpool: a guide for Irish women” which were produced in 1994 and some activist training and would use them to help women, from teenagers to women in their 40s who didn’t know were to go, were too far away from the I.F.P.A. clinics and so would try their luck with the local college.
This was often a risky adventure, there were those in the college esp the college nurse who opposed me doing this, she was involved with the local Cura Branch and I had heard of other people who were giving out information that they would try and record me. If I wasn’t sure I would arrange to meet people and then accidentally leave behind pages with info on them after saying I could not help.
I also traveled with women over the years and if I didn’t travel with them checked in with them after wards, to make sure they took it easy, so many students who lived away from home during the week would travel and come back to digs or rented house and needed someone to make them tea and listen.
I remember the name of every person I helped back then and when they traveled and some for years later I would get a card or mostly an email to the address I had back then to say thank you or just to have someone who knew to communicate with. So many women edit out that time in their life from their narrative. They box it off don’t think about it, don’t talk about it ever, to anyone and go on to have partners and start families and it’s never mentioned. Not even when dealing with medical professionals in maternity hospitals.
Even after college it didn’t stop, I left an email address with certain people and they would refer people on but soon it was possible to search for information on the internet, but I still ended up being a point of contact and information and the same when I got involved in online communities, way before even bebo. Even in those places when I would talk about the topic in general women would contact me privately to share their stories.
My abortion activism has always been part of my sex education, contraception and Choice activism. I have passed on information on adoption and supports for being a single parent as well over the years but when there were so few places to get abortion information and support most of my first contact encounters over the year have been about abortion.
So many women over the years have shared their stories with me, easily close to 100,
but they would only be `not even .1 % of the 150,000 Irish women we have stats on who have traveled to the UK.
These days there is more information and support but hopefully the day will come when we don’t have to travel.
* I use the term women in my post not to be exclusionary, but as I have not yet knowingly had a transman talk to me about their story or approach me for information.
A little while ago I wrote about Irish Abortion Providers and what type they may be and how “even with all the Drs we train in this country none of them are trained to carry the procedures needed.”
Two Irish medical students have applied for a course offering training in abortion care at a London clinic.
The one-week externships, at the largest London clinic of the British Pregnancy Advisory Services in Richmond, will allow students witness how abortion procedures are carried out.
According to Medical Students For Choice, which supports the BPAS programme, it gives students the opportunity to learn about aspects of women’s healthcare that are not part of routine medical training courses in Ireland.
“At the moment in Ireland, there is a lot of stuff they don’t go over [in medical education] such as how to do it [abortions] and the circumstances in which an abortion can be performed,” said MSFC member Amelia Reid. “A lot of medical students are scared about finding themselves in a situation where they need to know what to do to save a life.”
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A BPAS spokeswoman said the only criteria for taking part in the course was that the medical student had completed one year of medical school, had a basic medical knowledge, an understanding of confidentiality and ethics, and was able to explain in writing why they wanted to take part. She said they were not looking for students “at an advanced point in their studies”, although such students would not be excluded.
The spokeswoman said students would get a “complete overview” of the patient’s experience at the clinic, from pre-abortion counselling to choices for contraception afterwards.
She said BPAS opened the course to applicants in Irish medical schools after last year’s course — the first British course run by BPAS — attracted considerable attention from Ireland. As part of the course, students will also work with Antenatal Choices and Results, a charity that supports parents whose unborn baby is diagnosed with foetal anomaly.
Richard Lyus, who will mentor students on the BPAS scheme, said they were looking ahead “to a time when the law enables doctors in Ireland to provide abortion care to all women who need it”.
“We hope these placements will give Ireland’s next generation of doctors important insight into the needs of women in this situation, which they can make use of in the course of their careers,” said Dr Lyus.
Ms Reid said MSFC has a presence in all of the medical schools in Ireland, with the exception of University College Cork.
She said approximately 250 students in Ireland joined MSFC’s database since it set up here two years ago and that it hoped to provide financial assistance to Irish students accepted on the BPAS course. The educational aspect of the course is provided free of charge, courtesy of BPAS.
If you want to know more about Medical Students For Choice you can find them here: http://www.msfc.ie/
UP to 30 abortions are carried out in Ireland each year.
The master of Dublin’s Rotunda hospital, Dr Sam Coulter-Smith, told the first day of hearings of the Oireachtas Health Committee on the contentious issue that between 20 and 30 abortions a year are carried out to save the mother’s life.
Abortions.
Up to 30 Abortions a year.
Up to 30 abortions a year to save the lives of women.
Up to 30 abortions a year to save the lives of women, are carried out here in Ireland.
Abortions, not procedures, not terminations, Abortions, carried out in Ireland, by Doctors.
Never again can anyone say that there are are no abortions preformed in Ireland, that Ireland is abortion free.
Anyone trying to assert that fact is engaging in double speaks and frankly lying.
Have we finally matured this much as a nation?
I bloody well hope so.
In light of the horror story about that young woman who as brutally raped and tortured, if you want to email or write to the Indian Embassy here in Ireland the link below is the email contact form.
The wording of the 1983 “pro-life” amendment to the Constitution was hastily approved despite one attorney general labelling it a legal “time bomb” and another expressing doubts about its merits, newly released State papers show.
On November 2nd, 1982, two days before a vote of no confidence in the Dáil, which led to a general election the following month, the then Fianna Fáil government announced the wording of the anti-abortion amendment, which went on to be approved by the electorate.
This was despite the government being warned by attorney general Patrick Connolly SC that a “pro-life” amendment “might well have the effect of threatening the right of the mother” to have a life-saving operation.
Foreseeing some of the problems thrown up by the 1992 X case, Mr Connolly noted that, “whatever my personal views be”, a rape victim could not be exempted from any constitutional prohibition.
Nor, “in the current climate of what it is sought to achieve”, could the amendment exempt abortion where the mental health of a woman was at serious risk.
The Fianna Fáil government also had advice from the previous attorney general, Peter Sutherland, who argued that the amendment would create serious legal ambiguities.
So everywoman who may need an abortion is a ticking timebomb which may bring down the government.
An article in the Limerick leader this morning quotes Willie O’Dea TD as being supportive of legislation to allow for Humanist soleminisers.
An amendment to the 2004 Civil Registration Act, the bill passed in the Dail last week, comes on foot of representations from the Humanist Association of Ireland.
Figures from last year’s census show that 5.3% of the population of Limerick city described themselves as having no religion.
Speaking on the bill, Deputy O’Dea commented: “I have never attended a humanist wedding but I recently attended a humanist funeral in Limerick. I was impressed by the dignity and solemnity of the occasion. People of the humanist persuasion espouse an ethical philosophy of life and are required to act with reason and compassion. I do not doubt that many of them live their lives far better than people who claim to be members of particular religious organisations.”
But it seems that there are some groups he think should not be able to apply to have soleminisers.
Mentioning scientologists, “pagan associations and the Universal Church of Satan”, Deputy O’Dea said “most people would find it undesirable that such organisations might be authorised to solemnise marriages … in this country simply because they happen to be part of a religious group as per the broad definition set out in the principal act”
Oh dear.
I’ve already emailed the Deputy to make him aware that we already have legal pagan marriage in this country for the last two years.
With effect from 15th December 2009,
the National Coordinator of Pagan Federation Ireland,
has been registered on the Register of Solemnisers,
under the terms of Section 53(3) of the Civil Registration Act 2004.
Consequently, it is now possible to be legally married
in a Pagan ceremony in Ireland
If you wish to be legally married in a Pagan ceremony,
please contact paganfederationireland@gmail.com
to discuss the necessary requirements and availability.
In fact I know of a fair new which have even happened in his constituency,
I guess he wasn’t invited.
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.
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.
Last night while radio and tv stations broadcast debates on the announcement by government to bring in legislation in relation to the X Case (which is 20 years overdue), Roddy Doyle‘s The Snapper was also broadcast.
While the film was released in 1993 the book was written in 1990. Back when condoms were for sale with prescription only, the morning after pill was not legal and the Magdalen Laundries were still up and running. Sharon Curly was lucky her parents loved her and she was not sent ‘away’ either to relatives or to a laundry to have the child and to have it put up for adoption. In 1990 a unmarried mother was becoming less and less of a scandal and The Snapper helped break down some of those taboos.
With the availability of abortion in the UK the moral standards in Ireland changed, being an un married mother was preferable to the other choice women were making. to travel. So to limit that the taboo was lessened and financial supports put in place to include these new families long with widows/widowers/deserted spouses.
Eventually we stopped called them ‘unmarried mothers’ but single parents, and then lone parents, but with the greater access to contraception and the morning after pill (which in it’s current form only became legal here in 2001) there is now a move to remove those supports. So women are damned if they have the baby or damned if we don’t.
There is still so much ignorance about contraception, we don’t have comprehensive health based sex and sexuality eduction in our schools. What is doled out is ad hock and influenced by staff and the ethos of the school and the majority of schools are patroned by education trusts which are at least christian and usually catholic.
Many people (and a fair % of them are men) seem to think that all women can use hormonal contraception and that it is 100% effect and so women who end up pregnant must want to be or are too stupid to use contraception correctly. This lack of education is a social issue and does lead to assumptions and stigma.
We have moved on a fair bit from the early 90s but we still have far to go, at part of that has to be about the rights of children who are born from unplanned pregnancy and their rights and the father’s rights and the many presumptions made in the family courts. These days the term ‘unmarried father’ or single Dad or is at least heard.
But we will have a long way to go and comments made in the Dáil this week show it’s even harder when our TDs come out with comments stilling saying that lone parents are the reason we are in a recession and not the golden circle of Anglo Irish Bank.
Facts about lone parents rubbish claims they abuse welfare system
By Colette Browne
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
SOME of you halfwits have been blaming bankers and politicians for savage cutback, but righteous truth merchant, and Fine Gael TD, Derek Keating, has finally had the courage to identify the real cause of our current woes — single mothers.
What were you fools thinking, believing that dapper fraudsters in designer suits had led us to our current sorry impasse when clearly young women pushing buggies are the real reason the country is going to hell in a handcart.
Now, there are some who would argue that single mothers in this country have historically had enough odium heaped upon them and their children by pious politicians, but Mr Keating has decided the time is right to dump another digger-load of sanctimony over their heads.
In an extraordinary rant in the Dáil on Wednesday night, before voting for the many regressive measures contained within the Social Welfare Bill, the Fine Gael TD revealed that he had done some research of late and was appalled by what he found.
Budding anthropologist Mr Keating said he has discovered a sinister subset of single mothers, those with “three and four children”, who only stop spreading their legs to stick out their hands to ask for more benefits.
“I came across a case recently and when I examined it I noted multiple such cases. I discovered young women who find themselves caring, not for one child or two, but for three and four children by multiple fathers who are uncaring and failing in their duties of care and support with the consequences picked up by the taxpayer,” he thundered.
This proliferation of promiscuous women and feckless fathers “who do not accept their responsibilities”, is creating “a new lifestyle of welfare economy” which is “morally and socially wrong”.
While Mr Keating was quick to note that there were some “deserving” cases in receipt of social welfare, he said the State simply couldn’t afford to continue to support these naïve, wastrel women and their exponentially increasing broods.
Unfortunately for Mr Keating, the only thing he seems to have failed to uncover, in all of his painstaking research, is any evidence to support his judgmental dirge.
So lone parents are still being rebuked, reviled and scapegoated, but sure shouldn’t they be grateful that they are not locked away for the good of the rest of us, to work as slave labour for nuns and to have the honour of washing the sheets from the Áras, while the babies are adopted and under Irish law still have no legal right to find out who their parents are.
We still have so much growing up as a nation and as a people to do and we need to do it with compassion.