To ask our British sisters for help?

[Hideandgo]

Repeal the 8th. You may not have a vote today but if you are willing, could you show support for the yes vote for us Irish women on social media? I’m sure many of you have Irish friends and if it encourages just one more person not to forget to vote it would be worth it.

I had a termination when I was 22 and felt deeply shocked and less than human when the Irish nurse told me ‘we don’t do that here’ when I asked about my choices. Luckily I was living abroad (just coincidently at home when I found out) so had one as soon as I got back to the country I was living in but I avoided tying myself to an increasingly abusive man who would have been able to take my baby from me and force me out of the country if he’d wished.

I credit my 4 beautiful children, my kind, supportive husband and my freedom to be the kind of Mum I always wanted to be from that decision.

So many Irish women have a loaded gun to their heads when they find out they are pregnant and it’s wrong to force them to become a Mum. This doesn’t even take into account all the mishandled miscarriages and devastating cases of foetal abnormality. Every woman is vulnerable to a miscarriage that doesn’t resolve immediately and Irish women have been forced to hold on to a dying heartbeat till they themselves have septicaemia and/or PTSD. It’s barbaric and wrong. And makes women feel useless and dehumanised.

Please help us.

Let’s not get distracted by negativity now.

The debating is over.

The voting is over.

We’re in touching distance of change.

I for one have popped open a celebratory

What time will Ireland know by?

They’ll start counting tomorrow morning and the counties will be revealing their results throughout the day. Should have the full result by early evening I think.

Late afternoon tomorrow.

The exit polls only canvassed 7800 people between them so it could still go the other way...

But still. Hope.

In the UK, apparently one in three women has an abortion. That's a lot of teen rape victims with cancer.

Sure, there are hard cases, but the above statistic suggests they aren't the norm.

I'm only repling to this particular thread because the OP referenced British women, which I am. I don't usually interfere in Irish politics and haven't in this case. I don't think a bunch of British armchair warriors telling their Irish Facebook contacts how to vote would be terribly helpful. Also, I wish these islands would stop having referendums. The results are always shit.

@Agustarella I am genuinely interested to know why you think that an unborn being has greater rights than a living human? I am studying philosophy and am genuinely interested to hear your reasoning

No they're not "always shit" - they got same sex marriage through - and now it looks like they got the 8th Amendment repealed.

Nobody's telling anyone what to do - we're supporting the YES vote. I hope it prevails, it looks like it will.

For Irish women - safe, legalised abortion. We trust women to make the decision.

In the UK, apparently one in three women has an abortion.

Please do share where you got that bullshit statistic.

That's a lot of teen rape victims with cancer.

Please don’t be so dismissive. It’s highly disrespectful to the thousands of women who’ve aborted for those reasons.

I’m a British woman from an Irish family. In the last few years I’ve had 3 relatives come to stay with me while they had abortions. One was my cousins teenage daughter, who had to tell her Mum and Dad she was staying with me while she looked at universities in London. They would have disowned her if they’d found out she was pregnant. She was absolutely terrified, and I don’t know what she’d have done if she hadn’t had me with her to help her get through it. My heart breaks for all the girls her age (or any age) who have had to do it alone.
Another was a cousin of mine who has severe mental health issues for which she is on some pretty hardcore medication including lithium. She knew that she wouldn’t be allowed to continue her medication if her pregnancy was discovered, because it could harm the baby. There wasn’t a moments thought to how stopping her meds might harm her.
And six months ago, another cousin came over with her husband. She’d been TTC for 2 years. Her baby was diagnosed with a fatal heart defect which meant if it made it to term (unlikely) it would almost certainly die during childbirth and if it survived that (even more unlikely) it would only have a few painful minutes or hours before dying. But she couldn’t terminate as long as there was a heartbeat so she had to come here. She was utterly traumatised and the experience has put her off ever trying to get pregnant again.

That’s 3 women in my family in the last few years alone.

Tell me, what do you think they should have done? Should my 17 year old cousin have had the baby, endured the rejection of her parents, the harsh judgement of her community, and sacrificed her future? Should my wonderful cousin who has to take myriad tablets just to enable her to live a vaguely normal life have sacrificed her mental stability that she works so hard for? Should my cousin who so desperately wanted to be a Mother have become a walking tomb, waiting for months until the baby she wanted so badly inevitably died inside her?

They aren’t just “hard cases”. They’re living, breathing women. People in the “pro-life” camp just want to sweep them aside because they don’t fit your “love both” “not taking responsibility” narrative.

So yes, I’m one of those pesky British “armchair warriors” who’ve been campaigning hard for Repeal. I don’t want any more women to have to suffer.

That teenage cousin by the way, smashed her Highers a few months later and is now in the 2nd year of a medicine degree.

In the UK, apparently one in three women has an abortion.

That's a lie.

I'm praying to every god I know that the exit polls are correct - even rural areas on 60% yes - and Irish women are no longer treated as walking incubators. Even a gay US friend asked me if I knew when the polls were closing and when the results would be in.

Strength to you this night across the Irish Sea. The Kirk no longer controls Scotland and has turned itself into a liberal conscience. May you too be released from mysogynistic religious views stifling society.

Angelo - you have an apt username, I'm sure your female relatives think so anyway!
Entirely agree with you. And I don't see why British women should distance themselves from this, any more than why they feel they can distance themselves from FGM, forced marriages etc.
Women should stand together wherever in the world they are.

The exit polls look great - fingers crossed that they are a true representation of the vote! xx

Completely caught up in this from the other side of the world.

Was watching the clock this morning as it inched closer to 9am (10am Irish time).

I so hope the exit polls are correct.

10pm Irish time!

Let’s hope the exit polls are correct... when is the final result expected?

I haven't been able to sleep. I voted yes, as did almost everyone I know.

I'm extremely emotional waiting on the results to come in, as I don't want anyone to ever have to go through what I went through, having to travel to another country for an abortion. I look at my nieces, young female cousins, friends daughters and hope that this will not be the case for them.

On a much more personal note, it's nice to know (well hope at the moment) that a majority of my fellow Irish people don't view me as a feckless murderer. I've been called that, and worse. To think that more people understand what I went through, than view me that way is amazing. The tears are starting again.

Twitter was fantastic yesterday, people flying in from all over the world, one of the ferry companies holding the ferry because a group had missed a train connection offers of car travel and people crowd funding flights.

Then there were stories, a 90+ year old woman being helped by her grandson to vote because she is registered blind who loudly asked which box to tick and was answered with a cheer.

Pictures of people on planes, at airports and being welcomed.

I heard about someone handing out 'Tayto' crisps at Dublin airport.

Fuck off forced birthers.

Looks like it's a yes, 70:30 according to fb reports
agustarela maybe we will stop having referendums that annoy you when our citizens are treated on an equal basis??

Hopefully women will get human rights in Northern Ireland one day too

People not taking responsibility and then taking it out on an unborn child.

Oh bollocks. Contraception can fail. A friend’s baby was born holding her IUD.

All methods however well followed have a failure rate of between a percent to several percent. I work in clinical trials where anyone of child bearing potential has to swear to follow two methods at the same time and we STILL get accidental pregnancies. 

Women can be carrying a child that will not live more than moments - that’s horrific to deal with, should those women carry to term?
Women can be carrying a child that has issues that may mean stillbirth - should that woman carry to term?
Women may desperately want a baby, the baby is non viable and that threatens her life - like Savita Halappanavar. A septic miscarriage is not a vastly rare event and can, and does kill without prompt medical care - should those women die along with the foetus?

A repeal of the 8th forces nobody to have an abortion. If people are personally against abortion their rights are respected still.

Abortion restriction isn’t really to do with being pro life. If people were pro life they’d be campaigning for better help for kids already here. It’s aboit controlling and punishing women. It’s barbaric, it leads to suffering death and morbidity and it has to stop.

I hope the exit polls are right. I’m pregnant right now so no raising a toast with gin but I’ll manage with tea.

In the UK, apparently one in three women has an abortion. That's a lot of teen rape victims with cancer

I dont give a sweet jesus motherfuck if that statistic is true. I'm not going to give you a hard luck story either. Womens body, womens right. I'm sorry you were coerced, but most women freely choosing to end their pregnancies are not. If yours affected you badly get counselling, but fuck the fucking hell off from stopping other women's access to safe abortion.

Absolutely agree YetAnotherSpartacus.

So other people made a choice they feel they later regretted. SO WHAT.

Also, I can see a million images of 10 week old foetuses and I still care MORE about the woman and her feelings about not having been able to cope with what would have been ahead of HER and make no mistake, ahead of her, rarely 'them'.

and another thing, I'm on a roll now the voting is cast, even if somebody does use abortion as a form of contraception which imo is an utterly ludicrous assertion given the energy that goes in to arranging one, paying for it, explaining your absence, recovering from the procedure..... so even if somebody has two abortions or three abortions in their lifetime - and I know nobody who has done this, then that is still better than 2 or more unwanted children being brought in to the world to face poverty and neglect.

A woman should have the right to end a pregnancy for ANY reason.

There’s no need for ‘teen rape victim with cancer’ shit. If you don’t want to be pregnant, you shouldnt have to be.