To remind you about NI

[NowforNI]

There’s been a lot of discussion (and condemnation) on these threads about abortion laws in Alabama.

We still don’t have safe, legal abortion in all of the UK. 28 women a week have to travel from Northern Ireland to the mainland because they do not have access to the same medical services as women in the rest of the UK, despite paying for the NHS through taxation.

Women’s reproductive rights and autonomy over their own bodies are worth fighting for - please consider emailing your MP to keep this on the agenda.

Thank you!

nowforni.uk/#email

PS I’m not formally linked to the Now for NI campaign, I just think it’s bloody important

Being belligerent with posters who are trying to understand and help, really really is not helping your cause.

You might learn a little diplomacy if you actually want help and don't wish to just moan.

I don't think MPs outside of NI are going to get involved. They have enough going on in their own respective constituencies. That's who they are elected to represent.

Iain Duncan Smith was spouting off yesterday about honouring British soldiers who 'served' in NI - try him.

Have you started a petition to have the question raised in parliament? If so, how did that debate go?

Abortion Support Network

Asdou, I feel that you really need to do your research before commenting further. Buses of pro-choice campaigners travel from Ireland to NI at every possible opportunity to show their support when protests and marches are held in Belfast to support pro-choice. Weeks after Ireland repealed the 8th Amendment, a rally was held in Belfast attended by men and woman from Ireland. So your point about how there would be "uproar" if this was to happen is completely incorrect.

We know what we need to do to achieve change, and women (and some wonderful men) have been campaigning for generations for it. We email our MPs. We speak to people every weekend in Belfast city centre to canvass opinion and support. We take to the streets to march. We support our pro-choice platforms as best we can. We debate these issues on television. We are doing everything that we can to ensure women have bodily autonomy.

To be clear - Westminster can legislate to make abortion legal in NI in the absence of a sitting Stormont. They are simply choosing not to, no doubt so as to not rock the boat with the DUP.

We have some wonderful organisations who are a pro-choice platform and who have the backing of some pro-choice politicians in NI. Alliance 4 Choice, for example, being the main one that springs to mind. A simple Google search will bring you to their website, and will give you ways in which you can give your support. BPAS is another. Previous posters have highlighted these organisations well before I have.

Finallyhere - could you expand on what is in that link?

They are simply choosing not to, no doubt so as to not rock the boat with the DUP.

Well since elections are upcoming, you know what to do......

I'm not going googling NI. If you want help, provide us with links and an explanation of what's in the link. People aren't that invested.

Its nowhere near as simple as 'just vote for SF'. I'd put money on there being many people in northern Ireland who've had a quiet abortion that would never admit to it, and would be standing at protests on pro choice with their hat and bible because not doing that would be scandalous.

What I think everyone would secretly prefer is for abortion to be decriminalised by Westminster, and then they could complain loudly about it, but quietly access services that they need. I can't see how else it could easily be done without too many politicians worrying about losing their seats.

Similarly they could vote for Sinn Fein and then vote no to any referendum on a United Ireland if it's all so cloak and dagger.

The history of Ireland and the rest of Britain is so very different to the history of NI. We can't understand it. We haven't lived it. So either explain it politely to us and ask for help or belligerently try to intimidate us by saying we don't care.

You can't complain about other countries, yet not sort your own affairs out. I would imagine given the history of NI that there are very few people who would be willing to go on a bus to campaign for abortion rights. It would be like walking into the lion's den.

@asdou

www.asn.org.uk

*asdou" sadly is right, people aren't that invested, which is a huge shame and actually just downright awful. How can we not care about other women in our own country?
I'm bloody sorry to all of you NI women who are outright being told they are not worth even a two minute google. You do have allies, we are talking to our MPs about this and doing what we can to highlight the campaign.

Ireland didn't go to the EU saying 'you're a shower of bastards not caring that part of the EU still hasn't abortion'. We had to sort it out ourselves!

As far as I know, Ireland has a unique constitution, unlike any other EU member state (maybe 1 other country the same), whereby, the constitution cannot be changed without a referendum. That is why there have been so many referendums in Ireland, while the governments of the other member states could make the decision unilaterally. Ireland needs buy-in of the people.

LindsayDentonsCat Well the NI posters on this thread aren't exactly endearing themselves to me wherein I'd say, Ok, let's do something.
They're angry, defensive, argumentative, belittling and downright rude!
That's not how you gain support!

Irony asdou? "You can't complain about other countries yet not sort your own affairs out."

That's the whole point of this thread. NI IS our affair, it's not another country.

But they clearly are not wholly treated as one and the same - same as Scotland has its own laws.

They're a separate legislative entity. And that seems to be what the issue is!

So now that Westminster is controlling legislation in NI (I think?) since Stormont dissolved, why aren't you all petitioning them?

Has it been petitioned and debated for?

Maybe that MP who started the petition to revoke, could help you out. She's a remainer and NI voted to remain, so she might be sympathetic.

Basically, my point is this. There is fuck all I can do. Set up a petition to have it debated in parliament - I'll sign. That's as much activism as I get involved in.
I vote, I argue with my own MP (only yesterday!) but I don't really interest myself in the affairs of NI, or Scotland or Wales.

What do you think would happen if Westminster did change the legislation for NI so abortion could be allowed? The government is collapsing anyway, so there will be a new government where the DUP is unlikely to be the party holding everyone to ransom. So the DUP doesn't have the stronghold you think it has.

www.irishpost.com/news/taiwan-legalises-gay-marriage-becoming-first-country-asia-166953?fbclid=IwAR0Crertwb0b6Jb9DYG_glAkH_9YQa_o9nZrw9uZwuVAZ51-FGxXH_0atOE

Just saw this headline. Taiwan legalises gay marriage, becoming the first country in Asia to do so.

Posters have given countless examples of the work that is going on at grassroots level in NI.

Of organisations and political parties that are pro-choice. Of ways we are campaigning and highlighting this issue. Of the support we have from Ireland and the rest of the UK. Of the rallies and marches that we hold in support of pro-choice.

We have a very brave woman who has waived her right to anonymity is taking her case to the highest court in order to have NI abortion law deemed as being against our human rights.

We have petitioned and emailed and written to our MPs, many of whom have turned round and said they aren't interested because they are either the DUP, or need the DUP to prop up the Tory government. Labour have done themselves no favours with the electorate over Brexit, so who knows how long the UK will face the DUP having one finger in the Westminster pie?

We have explained the very unique political situation here, and why it isn't so simple as voting Sinn Fein instead. We have a growing number of young voters who are just coming of age to vote, and are voting for the likes of Alliance, People Before Profit, and the Greens - all of whom take a pro-choice stance. But it will be a generation before those parties have anywhere near the kind of support that the DUP and Sinn Fein have now, where they can action real change in NI.

Our women can't wait a generation. There are women who are travelling right now to terminate pregnancies, and it is so utterly unnecessary. There are women who have to carry babies with fatal foetal abnormalities to term because they cannot afford to travel. There are women carrying their rapist's baby, or their abuser's baby, because they cannot afford to travel. That is inhumane.

We are doing everything that we can, but we are up against it. We truly are. We need the support of anyone who believes that women having bodily autonomy is our human right. And by you taking the time to do something as quick and as easy as emailing your MP voicing your support will help.
So thank you, to all of you.

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners
I agree that no one should have to travel to another country to access free NHS services, the problem is NI forbids abortion so women have to travel to another country in the UK to get one, what my gripe is these abortions and travel cost's are being paid by The Scottish Government, that's money that should be spent in Scotland, not to be given in freebie's.

But the funding is determined by Westminster, and then grant funded to the devolved governments. So I don't think it's as simple as additional abortions = reduced funding. The grant funding is worked out based in part on previous years' expenditure, so unless there is a huge unexpected surge in abortions, the previous years figures will be taken unto account.