Breaking Barriers is the theme for the Abortion Rights Campaign 10th Annual March for Choice; which will be a static demo due to Covid.
The Demo is taking place on Kildare Street and speakers will be:
People are still having to travel to get the Health Care they need. The promises made to introduce proper sex education, safe zone and free contraception have not been kept. We have come a long way over the last 10 years but there is much work to do.
Putting a human face on abortion makes all the difference
Graphic posters should be countered by equally powerful images of women who’ve had abortions but are rarely seen or heard.
“Rarely seen or heard..”
Except for this 2013 award winning video by the Irish Family Planning association.
Except for the X-ile Project.
http://www.x-ileproject.com/
X-ile project is an ongoing online gallery of people who have accessed abortion services outside of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We welcome participation by trans men, non binary people and anyone who can be pregnant. Our objective is to give a much-needed face to those have effectively been exiled and ignored due to unduly restrictive and oppressive abortion laws. Our gallery demonstrates that those who choose to travel to have an abortion are responsible, ordinary people and are members of our communities. X-ile Project is changing the nature of conversations about abortion from the grassroots up. We believe that abortion and reproductive rights and the corresponding discussions should be led by those affected, not by politicians.
In recent times several women have come forward through various media outlets to share their abortion stories. X-ile Project builds on that important work by strengthening links between those who have travelled for abortion services. Our website launched on 10 December 2015 with our first group of 11 photographs. Our second group of photographs was launched on 23 February 2016. The third group of photographs was launched on 9 June 2016. Our gallery was increased to 50 photographs on 12 May 2017 following our #facethe50 campaign.
Except for those involved in Parents for Choice,
Except for those involved with The Abortion Rights Campaign
Except for the members of Terminations for Medical Reasons
And yet abortion and TFMR are medical matters and a person’s medical history is always private, yet plenty of people have come forward to waive that privacy to talk about their experiences and break the social stimga and taboo.
We shouldn’t have to be on posters, this is about our human rights, it is about compassion health care here in Ireland.
There were not posters of LGBT people up for the Marriage Equality, there should not be pictures of those who have had an abortion, we only but up images of people we are voting for in elections as we need to know who they are so we can judge their track record.
No one who needs to access or has accessed abortion care, needs to be judged like that, that only leads for more stigma. more unkind assumptions. People need access to free safe and legal abortion here in Ireland, no matter what they look like or no matter what their personal history or circumstances are.
Anyone who says that people have not been coming forward, needs to look around a bit more, say maybe at what else is being published in the very paper their opinion has appeared in.