Might the Irish referendum result pave the way for progress in other areas?

[FeijoaSundae]

What an amazing weekend to be Irish. I am not, but my DH is, and I have a gay DB, and watching from the other side of the world, it has been a very moving and emotional time. What an incredible country to put this to the people, and for the people to respond in so overwhelmingly a humane manner.

(As an aside: well done to the 'no' campaigners - I think their tactics when a long way towards nailing it for the yeses!).

The results of this referendum have significant implications internationally for the LGB community, and hopefully in other areas of social justice, too.

I wonder if this weakening of one edict of the Catholic Church on a country that was once quite dominated by its presence, might have a knock-on effect on other areas. The right to choose to have an abortion if needed/wanted, and exert full autonomy over one's body being an an obvious example.

What do you guys think? Is there more to hope for than there might once have been? I actually think there might be a teeny tiny glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Your argument is also muddled. As dancingbear pointed out it excludes him but at the same time leaves you free to criticise men for not getting involved.

It really isn't - at no point have I criticised anyone for not getting involved, or excluded anyone from getting involved- I believe I've said it's natural and normal not to have strong feelings, and that it's not the norm if they do - nothing exclusionary or blaming there. People who get involved with no stake in the game are to be admired (such as David Steele) as the majority of people would walk on by feeling that it's not their problem.

You're also mis-representing my magnitude of pregnancy argument. I'm saying that I certainly didn't think very deeply about it, not even when I was pregnant - until something went wrong.

As I said, I would have thought that I was fairly normal in this, that most people assume it'll all be fine, and only actually think about the risks when they become a reality.

Perhaps I'm the only one then. Perhaps everyone else carefully balances the risks of everything they do, or their loved ones do before they do it and is fully informed, while I dance through life generally only thinking of myself and those close to me unless spurred into action by something like FWR.

I also think the fight for abortion rights here in Ireland will be much, much harder, for all the reasons stated above.

The only sensible thing to do is repeal the eighth amendment and deal with it by legislation, but I'm not sure people will vote to repeal if no limit or conditions are specified.

The Canadian system seems the most civilised to me but I think it's a long way off.

Chunky your "ooh I never thought about it" remark is exactly the sort of remark which plays in to the hands of the "pro - life " lobby.

You must have seen the stories promoted of women who were pro-choice until they got pregnant and then decided they couldn't possibly support abortion.

.As dancingbear pointed out it excludes him but at the same time leaves you free to criticise men for not getting involved.

Er no , that is not what I said. My point was there will be plenty of men who have no qualms and will get involved but on the anti-side. I'm criticising their opinions not their involvement.

Your comments left a potential ally dancingbear prickly and a bit defensive about standing up.

I'm in my 50's and although attitudes to SS relationships have really changed during my lifetime, I feel that attitudes to abortion have not. I think it was telling that most of the arguments and propoganda for the NO campaign focused on issues of sexual reproduction (surrogacy etc) and raising children.

Err - now things are getting confused - that's exactly what you said - I cut and pasted it!

I think it's getting silly now.

Remarks playing into the hands of the pro-life lobby, having to police my words so I don't offend potential allies, it's all starting to sound a bit like I must be nice and not say anything that might upset anyone or hold a strong opinion..

chunky, I'm still really struggling with this 'lack of empathy' point. Of course it's difficult for a man to imagine himself in the shoes of a pregnant woman. But I can well imagine myself in the shoes of a friend of mine who found that the foetus his wife had down's syndrome. The decision to carry on with the pregnancy was obviously ultimately his wife's. but no-one should underestimate the impact the scenario had on him and his wife's family. Against that background, the idea that men are, by and large, a bit 'meh' about abortion because they don't have wombs doesn't.

By contrast, I don't have any close gay friends or family, so whilst I can appreciate on an abstract level how shit it must be not to be able to marry your partner, it's not something I can fully relate to.

Incidentally I think blackrider makes a remarkably insightful point about those who will only contemplate abortion in the case of rape. They make out they are being so fair and reasonable, but in doing so they betray that it is all just a blame game for them.

I don't think gay marriage has anything to do with women's reproductive rights.

Israel flew a whole load of gay men and their babies born of surrogates out of the Nepal earthquake zone. They left the mothers behind.

Plenty of people care about all sorts of things but don't care about pregnant women. I think we're back in that Owen Jones, we're all on a march to progress mindset. Are we?

I'm sure lots of men do care about their pregnant partners. I care about my elderly family members, but I'm not out there fighting for better care of the elderly or know what it is actually like. Caring about your wife, daughter etc is not the same thing as caring about women in general.

You cut and pasted what I said and suggested the argument was muddled. You didn't explain what you thought was muddied about it.

What I said was ^As dancingbear pointed out it excludes him but at the same time leaves you free to criticise men for not getting involved."

The "you" referred to is "you" telling dancingbear on the one hand it's not his concern and on the other reserving the right to criticise men for not being involved.

No one is telling you to be nice but if you want to turn this into a women only campaign, go ahead.

The rape thing in Ireland is actually very complicated, as it arose out of this idea that being raped and finding yourself pregnant would make you suicidal. There really is no evidence for this, but as it was what was contended in the X case, pregnancy caused by rape has been conflated with suicidality.

I am anti-abortion but pro choice. I think abortion is more often than not a sad thing and if there were a way it could never be needed to maintain women's wellbeing I'd prefer that.. But that's cloud cuckoo land, so I will always support a woman's right to choose.

The exception for rape is utterly illogical.

I actually think any time limit is illogical and the views of those who say every embryo has a right to live from the point of conception or at the other extreme no embryo has a right to live until the point of birth are both logical.

Both are extreme views and are unworkable so we fudge the issue by imposing a time limit.

I don't think gay marriage has anything to do with women's reproductive rights.

No, they're completely separate things.

The discussion is based on the idea that if the hearts and minds of a nation can be moved so significantly on one issue, do we think a shift might also be possible on another similarly entrenched (but unrelated) issue?

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But there was enough of a shift in other civilized countries to enable legal abortions within living memory. Why not Ireland also, one day?

Last week I wouldn't have thought so. This week, well, maybe.

The catholic church's once vice-like grip is quite clearly weakening, so, fingers crossed.

I'm not going to derail any further - but the person who said the argument was muddled, was you Lass - c&p from your comment (I must remember to use the quote marks). That entire top line was you, and I replied below it (oh for threading!)

And with the risk of repeating myself, at no point did I criticise - I said it was natural.

I can empathise with lots of things, but I don't presume that I understand it, or even know if that's how I would feel should I be in that position. You don't need to empathise with gay people to believe in them being allowed to marry though - if you're straight, you are allowed to marry, no empathy required, you are that person.

Like BlackRider, I think that exceptions for rape are hugely hypocritical - I think that exceptions for disability are pretty problematic too come to that if you're against abortion.

It always confused me when the whole termination debate seems to hinge on whether or not individuals would or would not consider having a termination themselves - the right to have access to safe and timely termination is something I feel very strongly about although I don't think I would personally have one (well, AND I am now 49 so increasingly less likely to need one). How I feel about it has nothing to do with what I am quite convinced is an important safeguard of a women's autonomy over her body.
Gut wrenching and heart-breaking as it might be to consider late terminations, they should still be available. Whether an individual then choses to have one or not is up to them.

Imagine if somebody came up with a law that said "All pregnancies resulting in a baby with Down's must be terminated" - there'd be (quite rightly) an outcry of outrage and disgust. It is not for me or anybody else to say, and it shouldn't be even for the Law to say, what another person is to do with their pregnancy.

Which is another reason why debates about disability and rape etc are irrelevant IMO.

I think various things have been happening in Ireland that have discredited the traditional outlook that lasted so long, and helping the country become more like the rest of northern Europe. Like middle-aged couples living "in sin" because one of them was married and couldn't get a divorce, the revelations of all the awful things that nuns and monks and priests did over the years, especially to girls, the fact that everyone knows about Irish women making miserable journeys to England for abortions, and especially the death of Savita Halappanavar--people got fed up with all that stuff.

And then simply the fact that changing times has made Ireland feel less isolated and unique hanging on the edge of Europe, using the euro, easy travel in and out, multi-national companies bringing in new ideas--the idea that "We're Irish, and here we do things differently" is much harder to sustain. When other people nearby have more money and more freedom, it's natural to question why you can't have the same things.

I found this an interesting take on how the discourses that were successful in the same-sex marriage referendum could be utilised in a campaign to change abortion laws: www.irishtimes.com/opinion/how-the-yes-vote-can-help-the-campaign-for-abortion-rights-1.2227660