To feel glad/relieved Ireland is voting through Abortion Bill

[ARealDame]

Its only a bare minimum - in the case of a woman's life being threatened - but it is also a massive sea change, on this sensitive issue. The vote in the Lower House was 127:31.

(Mary Kenny wrote very interestingly in the Times about it - saying that although the Church has played a role, much of the opposition was to do with Ireland's fear of "depopulation". Partly because of Ireland's history - famine, mass emigration. But also due to a rural pro-natalist mindset. In agricultural communities another child is "another pair of hands". In cities, another child is "another mouth to feed".)

[apachepony]

Hilda, is that 39 per cent of women, or of everyone, including men?
(oh and off-topic, but I would have to defend the Irish maternity system too, and Ireland does have a lower maternal maternity rate than the UK so it's not necessarily better to be pregnant in the UK - with an unwanted pregnancy, yes, obviously, otherwise not so much).

[edam]

Hilda, what do you think about the entirely avoidable death of Savita Halappanavar? The fact that doctors left their patient to die because she was pregnant and miscarrying?

I don't think the moral high ground here belongs to the anti-choice brigade, tbh. I don't think it belongs to a pro-life movement that is associated with the Catholic church, an organisation that has tormented women and children on an industrial scale for generations in Ireland (and elsewhere, but Ireland has had a particularly close relationship between church and state, unusual in a Western democracy).

[apachepony]

maternal mortality rate that should be of course!

[KobayashiMaru]

The Irish time asked about 100 people. But you're missing my point. I didn't say you were wrong and I was right, I said neither of us can speak for the "average Irish woman", because neither of us can speak for anyone else. You, however, attempted to do so.

[thebody]

abortion on demand is a mark of a civilised state.

lots of countries in the world have a long way to go not just Ireland.

it's the case that when a country is dominated by religion then generally the rights of women and girls are treated with contempt.

that's all religions as all religions are deeply mysoginistic.

[HildaOgden]

Apachepony....why were those women having abortions?

Was it because their foetus' had been diagnosed with a condition that meant life outside the womb was not viable,or horrendously painful?

Was it because they were geuinely suicidal,or at risk of death?

Was it because of rape/incest?

In all of these cases,I believe they absoluely made the right choice,and should have been allowed to do it in their own country.

Or was it because they were lax with contraception,because their plan B was to abort if they got pregnant?.If the answer is yes,then you just proved my point.

[KobayashiMaru]

But why do you think it should be your opinion that makes any difference?
this is what bemuses me, "In case 1 I think its fine, in case 2 I think its terrible", ok, good for you, but what should your opinion have to do with it at all?

[HildaOgden]

I really have to leave this thread now,not for any other reason other than I have to provide taxi service for one of my teenagers.

I don't want to fight with any of you,and I hope I have not personally offended any one of you.It's a horrible subject,it really is.And one I wish no-one ever had to address.

In the end,the majority will decide anyway.Good night ladies.

[edam]

Hilda, where is your evidence that the availability of abortion somehow encourages a 'lax' approach to contraception? Do you have any proof that women in Ireland are more careful about contraception than in the UK?

Given that the Catholic church has been preaching against contraception for decades, it'd be remarkable if women in Ireland were using contraception more avidly than women in Britain, but I suppose that might be the case - do you have any proof?

[rhetorician]

Both my children born in the public system and even though on the second the cuts had hit in terms of conditions on the wards, care and treatment was excellent. No one batted an eyelid at us as a lesbian couple, on the contrary, and I was allowed to cut both girls' cords.

But the principle remains, women should have the right to make these decisions for themselves. I wouldn't want my daughters to have an abortion, but I wouldn't want them to have a child that they didn't want either.

[KobayashiMaru]

Well, lets hope the majority gets it right soon, so.

11 Irish women a day travel to the UK for abortions.We have as many, to scale, as they do. The problem is just the same, apart from we ship ours overseas, and punish those that do it by making it so hard for them.
It's all so fucking pointless. And we've been campaigning the same shit for decades.

[ApocalypseThen]

We keep voting for the wrong people though - the people wit a penis who don't really care because its easier. They won't have to face the decision themselves and pro choicers aren't going to be bombing them/driving them out of their homes, so it's a bit of a no brainer from their point of view.

[OnIlkelyMoorBahtat]

Hilda Just in case you do pop back into this thread, here's something I posted on the other abortion thread. It's the NHS's statistics on contraceptive effectiveness rates and what they actually mean:

Male condoms: 98% effective if used correctly. This means that two women in 100 whose partners use a condom will get pregnant in a year
Female condoms: 95% effective if used correctly. Five women in 100 who use a female condom will get pregnant in a year.
Diaphragms: latex diaphragms are 92-96% effective if used correctly. Between four and eight women in 100 who use latex diaphragms with spermicide will get pregnant in a year.
Caps: latex caps are 92-96% effective if used correctly. Between four and eight women in 100 who use latex caps with spermicide will get pregnant in a year. Silicone caps are less effective.
Combined contraceptive pill: over 99% effective if taken correctly. Less than one woman in 100 will get pregnant in a year while taking the combined pill.
Progestogen-only pill: 99% effective if taken correctly. One woman in 100 will get pregnant in a year while taking the progestogen-only pill.

More here: //www.nhs.uk/Conditions/contraception-guide/Pages/how-effective-contraception.aspx

That's a lot of unwanted pregnancies.

"Laxness" is a value judgement, by the way.

[SummerRainIsADistantMemory]

Every Irish woman gets consultant led care during pregnancy without cost.

I have a high risk of having a baby with spina bifida, I received extra scans to monitor my babies' spinal development. I also received extra scans due to low placentas. I received physio and back braces within a week of complaining of back pain.

Every complication in my pregnancies was thoroughly monitored and assessed, I saw consultants regularly and could visit my gp as often as I wanted.

My youngest was in special care, he received life saving treatment.

I attended more scans and appointments than my friends on ante natal threads here who were under NHS care.

Two of my children wouldn't be alive if it weren't for Irish maternity care.

Really awful

[fuzzybuzzybee]

I am an Irish woman and I am pro-choice, in the sense that if a woman wants an abortion she should have access to one, however I think the situation is slightly more complex than Ireland is Catholic and misogynistic.

I know of one woman who had an abortion. The reason she had one was because her parents told not to come home with a baby. They were old fashioned with notions of respectability and she was unmarried and not in a serious relationship. She suffered emotionally for may years afterwards. I do not think that she was exercising choice by having an abortion because it wasn't her who made the choice it was her parents. I think their is a paradox in which so-called respectable religious type families would prefer the daughters to have abortions rather than become young parents.

I do not live in the UK so I cant say what goes on there for certain and I'm sure I will be corrected, however I get the impression that in countries where abortion laws are extremely liberal such as the US and the UK, the societies in those countries have become desensitized to it. The stigma which was formerly attached to illegitimacy has become attached unplanned pregnancies. Hence the demontization of any parents in need of state assistance. I have come across US facebook pages called "I Hate Teen Moms, They Should all Abort etc" which turned my stomach.

In western cultures today it is only completely acceptable to become a mother if you have a partner who is completely self sufficient and able to support you or if you yourself are completely self sufficient. I think that this is also misogynistic. If a woman is forced to terminate a pregnancy for financial reasons I believe it is a failure of the state in which she lives. The idea that because child benefit is available hundreds of women will have loads of children on purpose to live off the state is equally as misogynistic as the "floodgates open" pro-life argument. Also if its career reasons surly more help for mothers to continue their career after children should be argued for rather than "they should have an abortion".

In India and China, millions of baby girls are aborted every day just because of the gender, to such an extent that there is a population imbalance where men greatly outnumber women, leading to increased trafficking in prostitution. The women are often forced to terminate their pregnancies and if they do choose to themselves on the basis of gender its surly not a free choice because of the society they live in. The suicide rate among Chinese women is at an extremely high rate and it is believed that this is a result of widespread abortion of females and the lack of value placed on them.

I know that Ireland has it faults but in Ireland being a mother is still valued. Child benefit is one of the highest rates in Europe so that mothers are not forced to go to work (obviously they have the choice to). I recently heard an elderly TD argue against proposed cuts to CB because it is often a SAHMs only access to money and would help them leave abusive relationships. Being anti-abortion is not always women. No father or mother are stigmatized for being on the dole in Ireland, the way they are in England and in Ireland single parents receive a special benefit so they can take time off to look after their children.

This post turned out to be longer that I expected. Sorry for the rambling, but what I am trying to say is that I think most Irish people are pro-choice but they don't think abortion is a good thing. I don't really like Hildas argument that abortion being available leads to more poor people having children and more single parents because i don't think their is anything wrong with poor people or single parents. Women should have a choice but ideally it should be only their choice and not influenced by society or culture which I think is kind of impossible. I don't mean to offend anyone, but I feel a bit bewildered by the subject because my nephew was born last year at twenty three weeks. He is doing really well after several months in NICU. It is kind of disturbing that he cold have been aborted (for non-medical reasons) because he could feel pain, he scrunched his face when having drips, injections etc.

[BratinghamPalace]

Fuzzy where in Gods name do you live? There is a council estate near my mothers house. In it there are homes for single mothers. All, and I mean ALL the people in the town resent and despise them. The homes will encourage more "unwanted" children and loose sexual behaviour according to them. To them, these women should wear sack cloth and ashes. The same people think in a comparable manner about the pill, about abortion and (in general) about any woman who is not defined by her desire to marry and have children in wedlock. There is never ever a mention of the men and fathers of said children.

Our beloved island has an appalling history of abuse of women and children. This is a conversation about women. About women and ownership over their bodies. About women and their right to choose.

Scuse typos, cannot find glasses!

[SummerRainIsADistantMemory]

Fuzzy, you've very eloquently described a lot of my own sentiments.

I was a mother at 20. We needed state assistance to get by at times, as have most people I know.

There is no stigma of the dole or receiving benefits here. Everyone gets the help they need to survive and no-one disputes their right to do so.

We have a medical card and I receive the same level of treatment as a patient with insurance. My SN children receive OT, SALT, psyche, physio, paeds and CAMHS services and I haven't had to fight for any of them, they've been freely offered and resources given which I would have had to jump through hoops to get in England.

My dcs school fight for the SN kids. They support parents and children and go above and beyond to help my children work to the best of their ability. No-one begrudges my children their much needed resources, in fact every parent, whether they had SN kids or not, at our school was outraged when cuts meant we lost resource hours. Parents who had no personal reason to do so marched in Dublin to keep our resource hours and parents with no SN kids stood at the school gates for hours in -5 degrees raising awareness and getting petitions signed.

Not once have I been stigmatized for being a young mother. I've never heard a nasty word said about SN (ignorant maybe, but never resentful or unpleasant). From what I've read on English forums this is not the norm over there.

I don't know if this respect for children and families correlates to our abortion stance but I suspect it does in some way.

[SummerRainIsADistantMemory]

Bratingham... Where do you live

I've lived in cork, Dublin, Galway and the west and never experienced that. Dp grew up on a council estate, he's never experienced that.

[SinisterSal]

I am reluctantly pro choice. In an ideal world there should be no need for abortions, but we don't live there so we do have need.
But I have sympathy with Hilda's view. I do think 'normalisation' in society is a real thing. It happens.
I do think the 'only in cases of rape or incest' proviso is inadequate and hypocritical. (for eg do you need a conviction before 12 wks? What if your rapist pleads not guilty? Providing you, and the guards are on the ball. ...within minutes of the crime... Daft) Not to mention the philosophical imoplications of The Sins Of The Father
I have sympathy with Hilda's view - on a societal level (not individual, before people start telling stories of their own family members) that it does benefit those who favour 'liberalisation' of sex etc. I may be an unusual feminist in that I don't particularly applaud that. The brunt, if any, of sex is carried by the woman and perhaps we would do better if society as a whole adopted the traditionally feminine view of sex, careful and potentially life changing, and society adapted to that view.
Life really is precious. I have a lot of sympathy with that view. We should be seeking to help people preserve it, and minimising the conditions in which people find it necessary. Otherwise you are just a misogynist arsehole.

[SinisterSal]

I do know what Brathingham is talking about.

And I suspect she gets to the heart of the matter - it's class based.

Are you a scumbag/sham/knacker/scobie? Harrumph if so
Are you pretty much anybody else (leaving them damn forriners out of it for now) then you will almost get what you need - or at least there is the societal climate that says you you should get it.

[Pollypotatohead]

Summer completely agree with you-I also have 2 dcs with SN and am in the west of Ireland and having lived in the UK previously I know also that my kids have got a much better deal here in Ireland and have received and are still receiving fantastic support in school -far better than they would have in the UK!
I must also say Bratingham that what you have described as regards the homes for single mothers is unheard of in the Ireland I know in this day and age.

[fuzzybuzzybee]

I live in the inner city so maybe different attitudes exist than in more rural areas. I agree with the right to choose but I still don't think abortion is a good thing, if that makes sense. I don't agree with the pro-life stance in the sense that if abortion is illegal, it will prevent abortions from happening, because if a woman wants an abortion she should be able to have one safely, performed by a medical person. But I do think that people wouldn't need to have abortions as much if the reasons they needed abortions were removed. For example the Catholic Church doesn't believe rape victims should have access to abortions because the fetus is innocent etc., but you never hear them giving out about rape. I wonder why

In another thread about abortion a poster referring to pro lifers said what if their teenage daughter became pregnant, basically saying that if her/his own teenage daughter became pregnant they would be having an abortion, whether the hypothetical pregnant teen DD wanted one or not was irrelevant.

Imagine you are young and you have an unplanned pregnancy. If you live in a society where you will be made to feel ashamed for being a young parent, not self-sufficient or for being unmarried, I do think you would be more likely to have an abortion than if you live in a society where mothers and babies are cherished and children are seen as a gift and you will have access to state assistance and affordable childcare if you need to work/study. I am not arguing against bodily autonomy, I am just saying that society does impact on choices.

[sashh]

Hilda

My cousin's baby had no brain, she had a termination (not in the UK so maybe not relevant). I know three other people who have had terminations for various reasons. None were 'oh in contraception fails I'll have an abortion'.

Out of those 196 000 how many are not British but have traveled here for abortion?

Do you consider the morning after pill abortion?

I attended schools run by the Sisters of Mercy and my mother is a member of SPUC. I find people who oppose abortion tend not to have thought about the realities, they just talk about the 'little babies'.

As for abortion in India, the imbalance isn't just due to abortion. New baby girls often have dry rice sprinkled in their throat. It swells and stops them breathing.

There is also a cultural issue, Indian women do not want to give their baby up for adoption, they consider it kinder to kill the child than give it to strangers.

[fuzzybuzzybee]

Summer, Polly , I just saw you're posts now, I completely agree about SN. I remember the Special Olympics being held in Ireland. I was in primary school and our area was hosting Bangledesh. We learned all about Bangledesh, decorated the school in the Bangledeshi colors, the athletes came into to see our art and shook hands with all of us. It was a real celebration of people with SN, and I do think that is a correlation between that attitude and the anti-abortion stance of the state.

If the government were providing abortions on the grounds of disabled fetuses, I don't mean fatal abnormalities, I mean like Downes Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy) would the same attitude exist. Or would it be harsher, more disablist. And where does it stop, if the fetus is blind, deaf? Of course it is also the duty of the state to provide for parents of children with SN so that they and their children can have a good quality of life, I know Ireland is not absolutely perfect in doing this but it is a lot further on that other European countries.

[fuzzybuzzybee]

sashh I disagree about India. I saw a documentary about it. Before sex-determination texts were available during ultrasounds there were some cases of infanticide but they were in a minority. Abortion is considered not as gruesome and ever since a couple could find out the sex during pregnancy, abortions of females have become widespread so much so that it has been made illegal to find out the sex of a fetus but doctors don't abide by this law and are often bribed by the husband. Also the government don't enforce it. Nobody has ever been prosecuted.

One woman in the documentary is bringing the first case against a doctor atm. She was pregnant with twins, and refused to go to the hospital to have the test done. Her husband and MIL locked her in a room for three days with no food or water, her MIL then gave her cake with eggs in, knowing she is allergic to eggs. She had to be brought to hospital then after a reaction and her husband asked the doctor to do the test. Twin girls. She refused an abortion. Her husband beat her and through her down the stairs. She fled to her family. They took her in. (It is seen as shameful if a marriage fails so women are often forced to stay so not to bring shame on their families) She had her twins prematurely but they survived and are beautiful girls.


The availability of sex-determination tests and abortion on the grounds of gender is the catalyst to the gendercide, but the attitude to women is the primary problem that needs to be changed. Daughters are seen as a burden because it is customary to provide a dowry for them. They're are loads of proverbs like "when a daughter is born a thief has come into the house." Girls are often not given enough to eat etc. In the same way that in the liberal west, the attitude to young parents, single parents, poor parents, basically anyone whose not married, in their thirties with a high flying career needs to be changed, rather than making abortion illegal. There is a big difference between pro-choice and pro-abortion.