On the 'Rally for Life'

Today, I went to the counter protest for this year’s Rally for Life, despite really not being in the mood for it and the heat being something terrible for a stereotypical pale Irish women like myself (my foundation shade is ‘Siberia’. Wish I was kidding). Unlike the anti-Youth Defence protest which I went to last week, which turned out to be a great experience, today was nothing but horrible.

We hung out near the Garden of Remembrance beforehand, and there were far more older people there than I was anticipating. Like, way more. This was even more noticeable as we stood lining either side of O’Connell street as they marched. I’d say maybe 15-20% of attendees were women of childbearing age, i.e. people who would actually find themselves in a crisis pregnancy situation. The rest were men, old people and children.

Now, I understand that it is sometimes necessary for children to attend rallies -child-minding is not something that everyone has access to. But it is *incredibly* disturbing and unsettling to see young children chanting anti-choice slogans and holding signs. As for the older people, especially the older men, while they had every right to protest, the thought of them deciding to what I, a woman of childbearing age (albeit one with fertility problems) do with my (c)uterus is ridiculous. And I told them as much as they passed me.

While for the most part it was a peaceful protest, there were some issues which I feel are worth noting. My sister was with me, and in the 30˚C heat, she was wearing a romper suit and no tights. An old man came up to her and decided that it was perfectly ok to sexually harass her, to sexualise an unwilling participant, one who has only just gone 18 but who looks young enough to still pay child fare on the bus. My sister is a fairly headstrong person when it comes to these things. While I avoid nightclubs like the plague due to this kind of offhand, socially accepted sexual harassment (and worse), she still goes out, and I believe that she probably has somewhat thicker skin than I do when it comes to this kind of thing. But today, we had to leave the line of protesters and go somewhere more private so that she could have a bit of a cry and gather herself.

This was not an isolated incident. Another young woman said she was leered at and looked up and down multiple times. The despicable behaviour of the anti-choicers isn’t limited to sexual harassment. Many people who weren’t white were told to “go back to Africa”, and one woman was told that “she was too fat to have kids anyway”. Many were carrying pictures of a C-section calling it an abortion. The Gardaí said that there was nothing they could do about these images, despite the number of children in attendance. One man picked up his young child and shook him at us, ignoring the fact that his child was crying and visibly upset at being shaken at a group of strangers. Many anti-choicers used the Nazi salute and one said 'Heil Hitler' to a protester, although we don't know whether it was in jest or because he's a racist (Fintan O'Toolbox recently did a post on Youth Defence's links to neo-nazis). There were numerous placards which seemed to have escaped the screening process at the Garden of Remembrance which likened abortion to the holocaust. While I cannot say for sure that nobody at the counter-protest were being dicks, nothing has come to my attention as of yet, and we do tend to not be racist pervs.

The amount of money these people have to spend is ridiculous. It’s depressing and nauseating. Attendees were herded through one gate at the Garden of Remembrance in order to take away their homemade posters (usually because of their overly religious slogans – Youth Defence like to pretend they are secular, despite their massive links with the church and the fact that I’ve never seen more monks, nuns and priests in the space of one hour in my life). They are supplied, instead, with hundreds of shiny, printed posters in bright colours, which aren’t exactly cheap to print. There were three city tour buses rented and decked out for the occasion. There seems to have been a stage and a sound system erected at the finishing point of their march, which was something that I definitely wanted to give a miss. It is clear that US Anti-choicers are pouring thousands of dollars into Irish campaigns in order to keep Ireland ‘abortion-free’, while conveniently forgetting about the 4,000+ women* who travel for terminations and the 1,000+ women* who self-administer at home with pills.

This year’s march has been heralded as the biggest one ever, and the reason is because of the proposed X-case legislation. Slogans like ‘Kill the bill, not the child’ and ‘there’s always a better option’ were commonplace on the standard issue placards, showing pure ignorance of this legislation. The proposed legislation is the bare minimum; and even saying that’s a stretch. What this bill is doing is ensuring that women* don’t die as a result of their pregnancies. But it belittles women* and mental health when they force a suicidal woman* to plea for her life in front of three doctors, one of which has to be an OB, despite it being a mental health issue, not a pre-natal health one. The people who are opposing this bill do not care about women. They do not care about mental health issues. They care about shaming women* for choosing what’s best for them in a difficult situation, and continuing Ireland’s legacy of reproductive slavery and forced pregnancy , something which is deemed a war crime everywhere except Ireland. The European Commission of Human Rights has told us that we *have* to legislate for X. The people who oppose this legislation are effectively saying that they’re totes OK with breaches of human rights and denying basic human rights to pregnant women*. They are either incredibly bigoted misogynists or deeply, woefully ignorant. But they are losing this battle. Legislation will be passed, and we’ll be one (small) step closer to living in a country which gives a shit about its women*.

Despite this step in the right direction, we're still a long way off having any real, accessible legislation, let alone free, safe and legal abortion on request. As it stands, I would not be comfortable getting pregnant in this country under current, and proposed, legislation (though when and if I become a parent is still a *long* way off). If I was to be overly optimistic, I would say that when my potential future children are my age, they'll live in an Ireland with accessible abortion services. In reality though, it may well be my potential future grandchildren who have the right to choose.

I’ll leave you with one of the chants used today, and at many other protests, which highlights the true feelings of those protesting against legislation. “Pro-life, that’s a lie – you don’t care if women* die”.