Does Mumsnet really support illegal abortions?

[saturnvista]

Just that, really. Read it on my facebook feed. Surely not?

Nobody thinks ASN is the answer. But this has to go to a referendum so its not likely to change overnight, and while that's the case I am grateful ASN exists.

I'm confused duplo Are you against charities like ASN? are you against the 8th amendment? Do you support the laws in Ireland at the moment?

Agreed emilystrange2013. ASN does fantastic work, as do other groups like the Abortion Rights Campaign etc, but there is a hell of a lot of work that needs to be done to get the 8th repealed and get law that is fit for purpose in place. I can't see a referendum happening in the next year because there's a general election coming in 2016 and Fine Gael will want to spin their conservative credentials a bit, but it is a chance to at least try and get out some of the lunatics and get more pro-choice TDs in. A few more like Clare Daly and Ruth Coppinger would be great.

I don't think anyone thinks the ASN are "the answer to the problem", I think many people think (as I do) that the ASN have identified and are doing something practical to help the women on this island most affected by our current laws. Supporting them hardly prevents you from also campaigning for repealing the 8th, etc.

They're not the final answer duplo no, but they are a lifeline to women who need them, and I was proud to donate.

I'm absolutely against the 8th amendment. I just think that, on balance, I'm not comfortable with this charity getting so much more from this appeal than Rape Crisis or SEN charities, because I don't think the need is really as it's being made out to be. I don't believe ASN offers a lifeline, just a helping hand. There is nothing wrong with a helping hand, it's a good thing, but the way this has been spoken about on Mumsnet and some of the rhetoric about poverty and motherhood and suicidal rape victims really simplifies the whole thing in a way that I feel very ambivalent about - this European Iran thing. I am not sure there's the need for the type of marketing that ASN engage in.

But you're basing your belief that "the need isn't as bad as they're making out" on ... what, exactly? I have heard some absolute horror stories, including women ending up having much later and more expensive (surgical rather than medical) abortions than they'd planned because they absolutely couldn't afford to go for the procedure any sooner, and women turning to loan sharks. Are you saying that most women in Ireland can afford to get an abortion or travel if they really REALLY want to (which I don't believe at all), so this is just a little "nice to have"? What would the ASN get out of exaggerating the stories they've shared?

I totally agree that there's a lot of "save the poor oppressed Irish women from themselves" rhetoric around, but that's not the feeling I get at all about the ASN.

I think that there are probably some people who can't afford it and it's good they get a helping hand. I also think there are hundreds of services people desperately need in Ireland that they can't afford but it would be unlikely to see people in the UK put their hands in their pockets to shell out for, say, therapy services for women with PND or therapy services for children with SEN or mental health or learning disability supports or or or or or. I see people every single day of the week in dire situations who end up having later and much more expensive treatment because they absolutely can't afford to get therapy sooner, but there's no international campaign about this. So there's a political angle to this based on the service that it is. It's about more than the cost of abortions, isn't it? Do you think if one of the charities had been providing therapy assessments for children in Ireland waiting 2-3 years for any support that it would have got more money than the rest of the charities combined? I wonder. So what's all that about? I think ASN is a worthy charity and it will do good with its money. I just question what the donations have been motivated by in this case, in this context. It got substantially more than some of the other charities highlighted, last I looked.

I think the large total for ASN is because of 4 main reasons:

1. The difference to the other services you mentioned is that abortion is unavailable in RoI (and NI) because it is illegal.
   The other services that are lacking in the RoI are because the government there doesn't have the money, not that they outlawed therapy services for women or kids.
   So, many of us are donating because we view it as a Human Rights issue, correcting a deliberate injustice.

2. Many are outraged that women in NI don't have the same choice as those in the rest of the UK, so donate because of this injustice within the UK, our own country.

3. Donations can't possibly substitute for whole areas of welfare services, can't fund years of therapy for 10,000s of people.
   Whereas funding a woman to have a UK abortion is a manageable sum, a single event, to help a comparatively small number of women through an emergency of limited duration.
   That single event makes a huge difference to the rest of their lives.

4. There are continual attempts, many funded by US right-wing evangelists, to reduce abortion rights in the UK.
   So, we are kicking back at those campaigning for this, shouting out loud that reproductive rights for women are important to us.

I see where you are coming with in terms of number 1, but that's my gripe. The government didn't outlaw abortion services. The country chose to vote against it freely, fairly and democratically in five separate referenda over thirty years. I don't agree with any of those outcomes, I voted against it where I could (I was too young for most of them) and I know it will be put to a referendum again and only hope there's been enough cultural and demographic change to support it being repealed/reformed/things chaning. At the same time, I do believe in democracy and I don't believe it's okay for people outside of a sovereign state to decide because they don't agree with a law that the people in that country voted for it that their way must be "right", especially on an issue that is genuinely culturally and religiously sensitive for many people. That sounds very colonial to me and it complicates cries it is an "injustice" or a "human rights abuse".

I agree on the point about NI which is outrageous, and I don't know how it happened.

Not sure I buy the "single event" logic.

I can see the point about wanting to take a stand for abortion rights in the UK.

The government didn't outlaw abortion services. The country chose to vote against it freely, fairly and democratically in five separate referenda over thirty years.

That's not quite right. After the 1983 referendum, every abortion referendum since then has liberalised the attitude towards abortion somewhat (right to travel, right to information, rejection of removal of suicide as grounds etc).

So it's not the case that for over 30 years Irish people have democratically voted to uphold abortion laws; rather, on every possible occasion since then, the Irish people have opted for the more liberal option.

What George said. The country hasn't voted "against it freely, fairly and democratically in five separate referenda over thirty years", it voted against it once, over 30 years ago. I'm nearly 43 and I have never had the chance to vote on whether to ban abortion, the last time that happened was in 1983 and I was 11. At no point since then have I been given the option to remove the ban.

I'm not sure why you keep on saying that Ireland repeatedly chose to ban abortion, and that it's "our" democratic choice and is hence "colonial" to interfere with - you said it on another thread as well. It's patently untrue (certainly the repeatedly bit is) and actually encourages the more "colonial"/"European Iran" idea that most Irish women are happily anti-abortion and need to be saved from themselves, or that only a tiny minority want the law changed.

As in you are giving the impression that the Irish people have been asked repeatedly in referenda over thirty years "Do you want us to still have a ban on abortion?" and we voted "Yes, we do!". We simply haven't. I'd love us to have a referendum on "the substantive issue", I've been waiting for one since about 1989.

Fair enough, perhaps I am not making my point well by using those referenda. I sort of got confused about 1992 as I thought there was a substantive question put then but the suicide clause was debated as that when it never was. My sense is those referenda were couched as they were to increase the likelihood of liberal change and the substantive issue has been avoided because it is a political poisoned chalice. There have been several private member's bills seeking repeal of the 8th in recent years but the mandate isn't that strong, you know this surely. This is why we had legislation instead after some of the more recent and shocking tragedies, and that was forced by European Human Rights law (thankfully).

The fact remains that the human rights abuse in terms of abortion law in Ireland is not about the cost of travelling to the UK or the cost of the procedure. It is about how it has been used to deny life saving treatment or create situations where desperately ill women must travel to the detriment of their health and how this has been enforced and brought to the courts over the years. The human rights abuse is not about the lack of abortion on demand, it's about the consequence of a law that grants a foetus equal rights to its mother (new legislation doesn't really resolve this).

THAT is a human rights abuse and I'll be happily shouting it from the rooftops any chance I get. Anyone who wants to fund a campaign to take a test case to the European courts or to lobby for a referendum to stop that, brilliant. To think you are doing something proactive about the issue by giving a few quid suggests that cost of travel is a significant barrier when, though I am sure it is important for a small number of women, it probably poses the least danger and restrictions to pregnant women's health and wellbeing of all likely scenarios. Paying out for travel as a response to the current law is like putting a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. It is crap, it is woeful and it needs to change that women need to travel but no, I don't think it is anywhere near as serious a concern in the grand scheme of the current context. So in that context I think it's sad to see it get so much more money than a Rape Crisis service that can actually make a major difference relating to the actual heart of the problem.

In truth, I don't believe there are any greater numbers of women who really can't afford it than there are people who can't afford other healthcare procedures or to take their sick kid to a GP. Not these days when it's cheaper to go to London than from Dublin to Cork... But more than that, it feels like it's missing the bigger picture of all the women who have died or been treated cruelly because they can't travel, because they are too ill. I don't believe the newest legislation will actually resolve this. It is not a country it feels safe to be pregnant in. That is a HUGE issue.

So I'm not saying it is a bad thing to give funds to ASN. Just that the bleeding heart cartoons about motherhood being the price of poverty is barking up the wrong tree and making it seem like funding travel makes a huge difference, in a way that makes people feel all good about themselves for making a difference when the difference may be very small and papering over something that's HUGE.

But I think you're projecting something onto the ASN that isn't there, that they're claiming to be "solving the problem" and that if you give them money it will "fix everything", and that it's somehow a distraction from the real issue. I don't think anyone (the ASN included) is claiming that, and I know Mara from the ASN would be first in line to want removal of the 8th, etc.

Funding travel doesn't make a huge difference OVERALL, but it does make a huge difference to the women affected by it. There are women in this country who are absolutely financially fucked. And your:

"In truth, I don't believe there are any greater numbers of women who really can't afford it than there are people who can't afford other healthcare procedures or to take their sick kid to a GP. Not these days when it's cheaper to go to London than from Dublin to Cork..."

...really does come across as a bit "let them eat cake"-ish - a)flights to London are only really cheap if you book them well in advance, plus there's the cost of the procedure, plus possible accomodation, plus the possible cost of taking time off work, childcare for other children, etc. all of which adds up to considerably more than a GP trip with a sick child and b)there are people here for whom a train trip to Cork is genuinely unaffordable. There was an interview in the Times yesterday with a woman who was living with her four children in one room in a B&B in West Dublin, do you think she could afford a trip to London if she had another unwanted pregnancy? Also even if only a small subset of women are genuinely that broke, why shouldn't we help them? Otherwise, exactly as the ASN say, only women with some disposable income in this country can have abortions.

And yes, of course there are other problems in this country. Helping women affected by one of them doesn't preclude caring about or trying to do something about the others. And helping women to travel RIGHT NOW doesn't stop us doing something about removing the law that means they have to travel in the future.