Women of Ireland - Your Saviour is Here!

I've been a fan of Geoff's blog for about a year now, ever since he started looking into the links between Youth Defence and American support (using some sort of technological magic to suss out their twitter followers and the like).

He offered to write a guest post for my blog, and here it is - an insightful exposé into the American man who will save us Irish from our biggest enemy - ourselves (with free-thought coming in at a close second).

So, enjoy and don't forget to check out his blog and follow him on twitter.

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Few can have escaped the focus gained by the abortion debate in Ireland over the past year. Caught at the intersection of old colonial laws, the softening of the Roman Catholic hierarchy's grip on Irish society and worries that we might be losing our cultural identity, efforts to provide the legal clarity required to allow doctors to save women's lives has caused widespread debate.

Newspaper columns, radio waves, TV shows and coffee break discussions have been overwhelmed by those wishing to tease out how greatly we should value the lives of women and what caveats we should place on any desire they might have to avoid death while reproducing. But fear not. A Man has come to save us from ourselves. His name is Victor Bermudez:

We are supremely blessed to have him. Not only is he a man, he is a Californian man, and having reached the age of 21 he has decided to fly all the way to Ireland (sponsored by a group that expresses their commitment to defending life by opposing vaccination in Ireland) to save Irish women from that sinister opposing group hellbent on their destruction - Irish women.

Victor Bermudez, Man, Californian, Thinker, Hero,
Saving Irish Women From Themselves

I'm sure, like me, you are amazed that this man of admittedly tender years has found the time to fully brief himself on the Irish legal system, the decades long struggle for access to contraception, the niceties of the Irish constitution and existing legislation before coming to a firm conclusion that the Irish people are wrong and must be saved from themselves. Yet we find that Ireland is not the only country that has benefited from his generosity - he also knows what's best for Spanish and Australian women too, and has tried to help them see the error of their ways by marching across their countries and blockading family planning services.

You can find his biography amidst those of his fellow Americans on Crossroads Walk Ireland's page here, with a more extensive biography here. Elsewhere he shares his thoughts on saving same sex couples from their desire to wed.

How do they help us poor Irish see the error of their ways? Unfortunately we lack the intellectual capacity to fully understand the issue on the same level they do. Thankfully they have a simple solution. In much the same way one might place a fence in front of a stairs to prevent an errant child from entering, they simply stand in front of any premises with which they disagree and block entry:

Champions of the Irish people, these fine folk save us from ourselves by blocking entrances to buildings we shouldn't be in.

Do read more from Rachel Mary about their success in blocking access to the IFPA on August 13th.

Some cynics might say that it's inappropriate for those from another country to take such sterling efforts to correct our foolish ambitions at self determination. That folk who have not spent any appreciable time in Ireland are not best equipped to decide for its citizens. Without fully understanding the depth of research performed by Victor and his friends some Irish might say that they do not have the right to fix the boundary to the march of this nation. To those I say: read their blog. You will see nuanced distinction and profound understanding of every aspect of Irish culture. Take this post, where a contributor too modest to be named discovers that 'chips' are the Irish way of saying fries. Or read how Angie correctly identifies that we Irish refer to jelly as 'jam'. And I challenge you to read Caitlin's realisation that Independence day is 'just another day' in Ireland without both misty eyes and a profound respect at their unparalleled cultural research.

Pro life, pro lats - this strapping chap on Grafton Street displays Crossroads All Ireland Pro Life Walk and Family and Life on his fine, strapping back.

Ladies, gentlemen - for too long we have been fooling ourselves with these notions of self determination. These fine folk have come all the way from America to tell us that they know better. Who are we to tell them they're wrong?

On Irish Abortion Legislation and ‘Lapgate'

(kinda shitty post, but the heat melts my brain and I wanted to write something)

Last night, after a 21 year long wait, X-case legislation was passed in the Dáil at 127 to 31. However, it’s not law yet – it still has to go through the Seanad and the President’s office. While this is a momentous occasion in Irish history, and a step in the right direction for women*’s reproductive freedom, it is not without its issues.

The legislation brings clarity to doctors – a pregnant person can now undergo any treatment to save their life, even if that treatment will result in a miscarriage or involves ending the pregnancy. It takes one doctor to decide if the woman* is literally at death’s door, and two if she’s only a little bit dying. However, to force a woman* who is suicidal as a result of her pregnancy to plead for her life in front of a panel of doctors (one of which has to be an OB despite the fact that it’s a mental health issue, not a pre-natal issue) is cruel. If they do not unanimously agree, she must go to another panel, and they could take 5 to 7 days to come to a decision. They could take a week to decide whether or not to help, when a person contemplates suicide waiting for their verdict.

Mental health is real health, and this is something the legislators seem to not fully understand. If someone has gotten to the point where they would subject themselves to this kind of backwards and patronising system because their pregnancy is not something they can handle, they need help. They don’t need to be submitted to this trial where they are not even certain that the outcome will be to save their life and end the pregnancy. This legislation will do nothing for people who are suicidal as a result of their pregnancies. However, some women* may go through this panel. These are the women* who are too poor to travel for a termination and migrant women* who are unsure of their immigration status. These are some of our most vulnerable women, yet we will subject them to this cruel, humiliating process to beg for their lives.

The legislation also contains a jail sentence for those who terminate in Ireland, or those who help them terminate in Ireland. Under the 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act, which made abortion completely illegal in Ireland, this crime warrants life of penal servitude. In the new legislation this has become an undisclosed fine and up to 14 years imprisonment. No one has ever been prosecuted for self-inducing in Ireland under the old legislation, and we have been assured that this will continue with the new legislation. Why then, was it included at all? Why even make the threat to criminalise women who self-induce with pills in their own country? Why add to the stigma surrounding abortion? While this threat may only apply to doctors who perform abortions ‘illegally’ (i.e. when the pregnant person is not actually dying), there is a worry that it could also be used to prosecute those who provide abortifants, or collect them from the North, as they are supplying the means to carry out an abortion. Whether anyone is ever prosecuted for self-inducing, only time will tell.

This is the bare minimum. This basically tells Irish women* - 'if you're pregnant, and will die if you remain pregnant, we'll end your pregnancy'. It isn't bringing in abortion on request, and it also isn't abortion up to 9 months. After the point of viability, if the pregnancy needs to be ended to save the life of the pregnant person, a c-section or early induced delivery will be performed, not an abortion. While that seems painfully obvious, the anti-choice crowd have been using that as a means by which to 'kill the bill'. They would rather women* die than have a termination. That's not 'pro-life'.

Various amendments to the bill were proposed while it was being debated in the Dáil over the last few days. All amendments to broaden the bill were defeated. Terminations in cases of rape or incest were defeated because they don’t fit into the tiny box that is the Supreme Court interpretation of the law – that terminations are only allowed when there is a real and substantial risk to the woman*’s life, including through suicide. Interestingly enough, though not surprising, amendments trying to remove the suicide claus from the bill were also tabled. One has to wonder how the government could legislate for X (as we are required to do by the European Court of Human Rights), if we leave out suicide. The X-case is the reason the interpretation included suicide as a real and substantial risk to the woman*’s life. We have two referenda (1992 and 2002) where the people could have opted to remove ‘in case of suicide’ from the law; we chose not to.

Terminations for medical reasons, when the fetus has a fatal abnormality and will not survive outside the womb, were also left out, despite the argument that the fetus will never live outside the womb, and so their right to life cannot be seen as the same as the right to life of the pregnant person. These are generally much wanted pregnancies, and yet we export these grieving families to the UK and elsewhere if they chose to end the pregnancy.

The defeated amendment which baffled me the most was to allow for terminations during an inevitable miscarriage. Currently in Ireland, if you miscarry, you’re told we can’t help you, just go home and wait. Depending how far along the pregnancy is, this waiting could take three or four days. This was the only amendment which could have saved Savita Halapanavar had this legislation been in place a year ago. In countries where abortion legislation is broader, you can chose to end the miscarriage via a D&C. This results in the cervix being open for a considerably shorter amount of time, thus reducing the risk of infection, and can also reduce the mental anguish of the person miscarrying.

One distinction that anti-choicers repeatedly used was the misinformed idea that abortions are different from necessary medical interventions which end a pregnancy. Soz, nope. In cases of ectopic pregnancies, the zygote is pretty much directly targeted and removed. Obviously, if an ectopic pregnancy is left untreated for long enough, the damage to the fallopian tube can be so great that it must be removed. This is often done in very Catholic hospitals – patients must wait until their tube is so damaged before they can receive treatment, because then you can say that it’s not really abortion. This misguided argument has also been used when discussing this bill, despite the fact that the word ‘abortion’ isn’t used once, it’s always called a medical procedure or medical intervention. Sarah Malone deals amazingly with both these points in a recentinterview (also note how it’s two middle aged, British men arguing against a young, Irish woman about abortion in Ireland…)

It was not only the legislation which caused controversy over the lst few days at the Dáil. During the first sitting, which went on til 5am, Tom Barry TD pulled Áine Collins onto his lap and held her there while she was clearly uncomfortable, only releasing her after a pat on her very lower back. A number of male TDs around them are seemingly unbothered by this behaviour. During a debate about women’s reproductive rights, a female TD is sexually harassed. Because what happened was sexual harassment. Collins later accepted Barry’s apology, but that doesn’t mean it was OK. It shows the way in which the Dáil is still very much set in a Mad Men era. Excuses have been made, ranging from the fact that the heating wasn’t on (it was a 27 degree day), the few drinks he’d had (why our politicians are allowed drink while debating life and death legislation is for another day) or simply that it was ‘silly’ and a bit of ‘horseplay’.

We haven’t exactly come a long way in the last 21 years regarding abortion legislation in Ireland. This legislation is not yet law, and odds are it will face many more hurdles set up by the anti-choicers and misogynist politicians, but I’m confident that it will pass, and Ireland will be a slightly safer country for pregnant women*.

But it’s important not to get complacent. We shouldn’t wait another 21 years, or for another tragic death, before we get the 8^th Amendment repealed. We need a referendum to remove this out-dated, religious-based, misogynist article from our constitution. Then, we can make real progress with reproductive rights in Ireland. 

On Human Rights - EWTS Session Four

Notes and thoughts on session 3 of the EWTS conference, which was about Human Rights. Speakers were Dan Barker, Maryam Namazie and Jane Donnelly. 

On the Separation of Church and State - EWTS Session Three

Notes and thoughts on session 3 of the EWTS conference, which was about Separation of Church and State. Speakers were Ann Brusseel, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Elida Radig and Michael Nugent.

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”.

On Secular Values in Society - EWTS Session Two

Notes and thoughts on session 2 of the EWTS conference, which was about Secular Values in Society. Speakers were Leonie Hilliard, Nina Sankari, Farhana Shakir and P. Z. Myers. 
Trigger warning - contains discussions about rape and rape culture.

On Reproductive Rights and Irish Abortion Law - EWTS Session One

Notes and thoughts on session 1 of the EWTS conference, which was about Reproductive Rights and Abortion Law in Ireland. Speakers were Ailbhe Smyth, Anthea McTiernan, Ophelia Benson, Ross Kelly and Clare Daly.
Trigger warning - contains discussions about abortion.

On an Introduction to Empowering Women through Secularism

Annie Laurie Gaylor is the co-founder of the Freedom from Religion Foundation and editor of Freethought Today.

Freedom from religion foundations wouldn’t exist without the Catholic Church’s war on reproductive rights. Women have to save ourselves from theology-festered misogyny – the rising of women means the rising of us all.

In the wake of the child abuse scandals, Catholic Ireland must choose between women, children and their rights, or bishops and their wrong; between reproductive freedom or returning to the dark ages. Humanity should come before dogma, however as the tragic and unavoidable death of Savita Halappanavar last year proved, Catholic Ireland hasn’t reached this point of consciousness. A doomed fetus was placed above the life of a woman due to adherence to religious dogma. ‘But the Bible says abortion is murder’ many have cried, yet Gaylor notes that it doesn’t actually say this at all. What it does is provides ammunition for anti-women ideas, dooming them to be subservient, responsible for all of mankind’s sins though maternal servitude. Yupp, we get periods and the pain of childbirth in order to atone for sins on a global and timeless scale. Bit of a shit deal, in my opinion.

Gaylor goes on to tell us about her life growing up in Wisconsin before Roe vs Wade. Her mother was the one to go to if you had an unplanned pregnancy, and she would help you get to Mexico City for a termination. It was also illegal there, but considerably safer than back alley abortions in the US at the time. In 1971, Wisconsin’s first abortion clinic opened, and three weeks later a Roman Catholic attorney raided the clinic, stole records and appointment details, and removed a 17 year old girl from the clinic, despite being literally in the stirrups at the time of the raid. In response, Gaylor’s mother raised money to send the women who had appointments to New York for a termination.

Women were attempting to give themselves abortions using coat hangers and dying. Abortion was, and still is, a matter of life and death. No woman can call herself free until she has complete control over her body, until she can make the decision whether or not to become a mother. Yet legal abortion doesn’t mean much if it remains, or becomes, inaccessible; if it remains expensive, if clinics are shut down to the extent that entire areas are without a single clinic, if remaining clinics have strict regulations imposed on them.

The root of this bodily control is religious influence in governments and laws. Secularism (that is the removal of religious influence and dogma from all legislation, laws and governmental decisions, so that religious belief is a personal and private thing alone) is vital for women’s advancement, safety and control over their own bodies and reproductive healthcare choices. To empower women, we must disempower the Catholic Church, and all other religious institutions. Free thought is the best weapon women have in a world where religious dogma expects our silence and subservience.

We may not have a god on our side, but we have humanity and the enlightenment. Morality does not stem from theology, but from nature.