TERFs and the Irish referendum

Ratbags I mean

The IWD date is deliberate.

Look how progressive we are, women get to vote to get out of the home on IWD.

It's the a cynical move by the tratbagd in government

Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me. Gender equality in this respect would be to loosen the connection between the legal rights and responsibilities and the biological reality of being a woman/mother who gives birth to a child. After they are just womb havers etc...

The emphasis on different types of 'durable relationships' rather than biological families could be used to support this as well

Of course none of this will change biological reality, it will just mean that it is more open to being commodified and commercialised and women will face even more negative effects

It makes me feel queasy that this is being held on IWD and NCWI cheerleading it😥

Why do Yes people keep boring on about the Marriage Bar (RIP 1973) ?

There was no Referendum to get rid of it since it wasn't in the Constitution. A complete red herring.

As for previous posters concerned with euthanasia or the removal of the constitutional underpinning of children's allowance , yes....unintended consequences ahoy. Or the state getting out from under its obligations? Can't just dump shit on the church now. Thankfully.

But what rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem to be born in its stead.....

They are debating 'assisted dying' at the moment, and there is nothing in the constitution to stop them afaik. There are some in the HSE who would be quite gung ho about it - I heard some quite chilling comments on my own aged parents, and was glad they had legal protection.

@DeanElderberry

I am not so sure there would have something somewhere in the constitution which could challenge that.

Soft power over life and death in bureaucrats scary thought.

I'm convinced the care one is about legalising killing. Force all responsibility - not just the care, but also the admin and organisation of support - onto family as tenuously defined as possible, then start pointing out how expensive and onerous it is and that the caree has no quality of life, and wouldn't it be better . . . .

@StephanieSuperpowers

If this is somehow connected to surrogacy then it has to involve the automatic guardianship rights of the single mother.

Any child born through surrogacy is by default a child born out of marriage and so the woman giving birth is the automatic guardian.

There has to be a connection between the two.

'Follow me, I'm right behind you' worked well for FF for years, not strange to see other parties (and independents) sing the same song.

Who knows. They re-ran the Lisbon Treaty. But SF weren’t in power and they’ll say anything they think might garner them some popularity. I know that’s true to some extent of all politicians but SF are particularly prone to it and really blow with the wind.

I wonder will they re-run it really? When the electorate voted against changes to the voting system and on the Seanad they didn't revisit any of those, even though the margins were often low.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amendments_to_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

The government should used the assembly wording. Changing it and hiding the notes from the meetings re the same is hugely fishy.

I just don't trust them especially ROG.

If we don't vote correctly, SF are going to rerun it if they get in power with different wording https://www.thejournal.ie/family-and-care-referendums-sinn-fein-6304542-Feb2024/

Not at all. I'm trying word of the day with DD and I've been looking for my chance to use it!

I had to google propinquity. It is a nice word. Thank you for introducing me to it.

Accidentally de facto marrying your long term employee through propinquity. What are the chances, etc?

Careful who you work for, it's rough out there.

The question now is, does his relationship with the workman count as a "durable relationship" under the law. I would argue that it certainly could.

It's interesting to compare two articles written by the same person, a solicitor called Mary-Frances Fahy. In the first, she writes why she will be voting Yes/Yes, and says there is nothing to lose by treating unmarried families the same as married ones. (She also says this will enable to us to treat same-sex relationships as equal which is bizarre as we have same-sex marriage).

https://m.independent.ie/farming/rural-life/mary-frances-fahy-why-im-voting-yes-its-long-overdue-recognition-for-tens-of-thousands-of-other-family-units/a1248815721.html

In the second, she is responding to a farmer who asks her whether he should marry his workman so he can leave his farm to him without the workman having to pay inheritance tax. All of a sudden there are a lot of potential downsides to exchanging an unmarried relationship for a married one. (Screenshot is from this article).

https://m.independent.ie/farming/legal-advice/i-want-to-leave-my-farm-to-my-workman-i-read-about-two-fellas-marrying-to-avoid-inheritance-tax-could-this-work-for-me/a220485133.html

Well, I'm sticking to my guess of something to do with surrogacy. I see at least two recent articles in the Irish Independent about how buying babies from impoverished women is a feelgood story that needs to be facilitated better by the state. So it definitely feels like softening us up for something.

@Dublincailin I suppose I don't really disagree with you - there are certainly people in government who will want to save money. I just think more broadly a lot of the support for the amendments is well-meaning and badly thought-through.

More human rights organisations coming out against the care ammendment
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/02/20/care-amendment-criticised-by-independent-living-movement-ireland-and-irish-council-for-civil-liberties-in-further-blow-to-yes-yes-referendum-campaign/

https://archive.ph/JAHh7

Catherine Martin squirming when asked about the head of the referendum commission saying she was wrong about what she tweeted about the referendum

https://twitter.com/griptmedia/status/1759628851406045486

Mermoose
I don't know, I think for members of the Citizens Assembly it's about addressing sexism. I do wonder how many of the people who initially called for it to be changed are happy with the proposed wording.

I agree, there are probably a few who are wondering how it ended up in such a mess.
I read somewhere that in a similar way, the advice from consultations surrounding the GRA back in 2015 was to have a medical model, which the government then rejected at the last minute in favour of Self ID. So they are not beyond using sneaky tactics to push through what they want.

@Mermoose

We can agree to disagree.

It is irrelevant what the assembly think or suggested it is the government which settles on the final wording.

And I believe ultimately the government has more information than the assembly and you or I, and IME all roads led back to saving money

I don't know, I think for members of the Citizens Assembly it's about addressing sexism. I do wonder how many of the people who initially called for it to be changed are happy with the proposed wording.

Childcare and home care are, economically, externalities and the state does need to recognise them & support carers. It's an underappreciated & vital job and we should be working to elevate rather than denigrate it. The overwhelming majority of people doing that work are women and that should be recognised.

The subtext of the campaign for Yes seems to be that care work is undignified and by pretending women aren't the ones doing it we can somehow get rid of the effect homecare has on women's prospects.

While at the same time dangling money pretending like there will be a mandate to fund services only if theres a yes vote, like anything with the current wording is preventing them from properly funding care.

What they've announced this week about SNAs in schools shows that they have no intention to actually fund services for disabled people. Insist on mainstreaming everyone and then cut the hours for special needs children, which will effect the special needs child and everyone else in their class https://www.thejournal.ie/special-education-teaching-hours-norma-foley-6299482-Feb2024/