Abortion Support Network- abortion not just a women's issue?

[Doobigetta]

Apologies- I know lots of people are sick of hearing about the trans issue. But I received the following email from the ASN today-

Calling all creative minds
Six and a half years ago we were very fortunate to have someone design a logo for us. Our logo has served us well but ASN has grown and we feel it’s time for our brand to have a bit of a touch up. We are particularly interested in a logo that is more in line with the fact that we sometimes hear from trans people and others who do not consider themselves to be women. At ASN we’ve crowd sourced everything from our first logo to our director’s 2015 salary and we thought we’d do the same with our new logo. Interested? Email us and we'll send you the brief. You don’t even need to be an "official" - if our favourite image is a doodle we can get one of our amazing volunteer designers whip it into a graphic. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

I've responded to say I'd be very unhappy about them badging abortion rights as anything other than a women's issue, and that I feel conflating it with questions of gender identity weakens and undermines the importance of it as a women's issue. Please, if you feel the same way, could you let ASN know?

This is beyond ridiculous.

I had hoped when I read the title this was about how denying women basic human rights is shameful to society as a whole, and to the men in it, too ...

But they seriously hop on the "women are not the only people who can be in need of abortions" train? What?

It's like they're telling us the sky is purple and the moon made of green cheese.

Don't know if I as non-Brit have any influence here, but I totally agree with you.

I will email them. How utterly ridiculous. Only females can get pregnant, therefore only females can access abortions, let's not skirt round this issue!

I will email too.

I got that email and I was a bit unsure whether to query it because they do such fantastic work purely on donations and it seems wrong to be critical.

But actually I did find myself thinking, what, really? So I'll email too.

How Infuriating and bloody stupid

From the title I had assumed it was similar to the idea that pornography and prostitution damages society as a whole.

Getting a new logo seems an odd priority and an odd way to spend money.

What really made me gawp/snort was that two items down from that on the newsletter was this;

10 June 2016
Irish Post
UN rules that ‘cruel and inhuman’ Irish abortion law discriminates against womenen_
“Let’s hope the Irish government ends its emotional and financial punishment of people who chose to terminate non viable pregnancies by allowing them to do so at home.”*

So the UN thinks that it's women who have abortions, but again the editorial text is "people who choose to terminate..."

(That's an unfortunate formatting glitch. The original says 'discriminates against women').

Considering the charity largely supports Irish women, I would imagine the number of people who are ftm trans who avail of the service has got to be vanishingly small.

It would be interesting to know whether they have had comments from pregnant ftt who feel excluded from using the service, or they are anticipating negative publicity. Or if it's just an excuse for a relaunch.

I think the longterm goal of the transpropaganda is to make it impossible to rule against abortion laws on the grounds that they discriminate against women.

If "men can need abortions, too!" then this is no discrimination against women, and Ireland can keep doing it, problem solved. It's insidious.

Anyone have information on if/when Ireland is going to abolish this cruel law? I was considering going for a holiday in Ireland next year, but I don't go where women aren't welcome, and in Ireland, well ...

Men don't need abortions.

Only women can become pregnant, no matter what they feel like or if they have a beard or whatever. If someone is pregnant, they are either a woman or a medical marvel and possibly some kind of miracle. They should be calling the Pope to let him know.

Oh for fucks sake.

I received this email and bloody missed that in it

I have emailed them.
The female sex still exists.

(I even emailed them from my real name rather than from beyond!)

[email protected]

I am sick of this kind of thing. Women are a sex class. We mean something. We exist.

I've had a reply from them, along the lines of "we don't want to exclude anyone, and needing an abortion isn't dependent upon gender identity"

Yeah I had a reply too, sounds identical. On my phone though so can't c&p it.
I wonder how much of their donations come from gender-critical feminists...? Who else here donates (if you're happy to share)?

Yup, got the same reply. I'm really torn because I hate to be critical of this amazing organisation.

But like pp I'm fed up of the new order whereby women-centred language and, in this case, imagery, in areas to do with women's healthcare is dropped for fear of offending anyone who doesn't identify as a woman.

I am baffled.

I had to google the abortion support network to see what their logo was.
I am assuming it is the image of 3 symbols in the top left corner of the screenshot I have attached?

I am also assuming those 3 are to represent the second image I have attached which is the symbol for the female sex?

Now whilst some people who need abortion may not identify as women the very fact that they need an abortion means they are indeed a member of the female sex and so i cant understand why the symbol for the female sex would be in anyway inappropriate or misrepresentative of any service user.

I'm going to write but I'm going to have a good think about how I put it. I believe accommodations can and should be made for transmen who need healthcare regarding their female reproductive systems but I think we can do this in a way that doesn't erase women. Can they not have a paragraph at the bottom that states that any transmen who wish to access their services for example, will be treated as they wish, and their gender identity will be fully respected. Or have a separate set of literature for transmen while still keeping the main stuff "women" focused.

I donate to this charity. I will be thinking very hard about whether I want to continue or whether I want to switch donations to an org that unambiguously centres access to abortion as an issue affecting women only.

It will be a tough call as this charity is tiny and its grants are desperately needed - but in the long term it may not do any of us a favour to support orgs that are bolstering an extremely regressive political ideology. I bet 'abortion isn't a women's issue!' will get trotted out as an argument against the repeal of the 8th amendment in RoI if it hasn't been already.

:(