Despite law’s defeat, women fight on for abortion rights in Argentina

Despite law’s defeat, women fight on for abortion rights in Argentina

By Kathleen Durkin
posted on August 26, 2018

Women in Argentina may have lost a vote for the right to abortion on Aug. 9, but they are undaunted. They are not intimidated or afraid. They are angry. They are determined. They are optimistic. With renewed energy, they say they will keep on organizing until they win this fundamental right.

The current struggle is for legalization of elective abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy; 62 percent of the population supports reform. The lower house of the Argentinian Congress had passed such a law on June 14, in response to the mass movement. However, the more conservative Senate narrowly defeated legalization on Aug. 9 with a 38-31 vote; two senators abstained. The majority of “no” votes were cast by men over the age of 50.

Continued: https://www.workers.org/2018/08/26/despite-laws-defeat-women-fight-on-for-abortion-rights-in-argentina/

Report: Timlin helped cover up rape, abortion

Report: Timlin helped cover up rape, abortion

August 14, 2018
By Brigid Edmunds-Lawrence

Among the reams of damning accusations against Pennsylvania clerics that Attorney General Josh Shapiro highlighted Tuesday, one incident involving a longtime Scranton bishop stood out.

In the 1980s, then-Bishop James C. Timlin helped cover up an allegation that a priest had raped a 17-year-old girl in Luzerne County and procured an abortion for her, according to the report.

Continued: https://www.timesleader.com/news/715052/timlin-helped-cover-up-rape-abortion

Ireland’s Feminists Lost the Abortion Argument in ’83. This Time We Can Win.

Ireland’s Feminists Lost the Abortion Argument in ’83. This Time We Can Win.

By Susan Mckay
May 5, 2018

DUBLIN — In 1983 the Irish people voted to give a fertilized egg the same right to life as the woman who carries it. Feminists tried to stop it. We argued that crisis pregnancies were a reality of women’s lives and that we needed the right to choose how to deal with them. We said that the constitutional amendment on the ballot, which made abortion illegal unless the mother’s life is in danger, would harm women. We marched and chanted “Get your rosaries off our ovaries.” A Catholic bishop pronounced that the most dangerous place for a baby was in a woman’s womb.

We lost, overwhelmingly. But Ireland has changed. On May 25, the Irish people will vote on whether to repeal the Eighth Amendment. This time I think we can win.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/opinion/sunday/ireland-abortion-referendum.html

Will the Tuam Babies Scandal Ignite an Investigation into Church-State Relations in Ireland?

Will the Tuam Babies Scandal Ignite an Investigation into Church-State Relations in Ireland?
by Julia Canney • 17 March 2017

In 2012 amateur historian Catherine Corless began investigating the abandoned Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. Disconcerted by the lack of media attention given to her finding that 796 babies had died there in the span of thirty-six years, Corless began the painstaking journey to discover the truth of what happened under the eyes of the Bon Secours nuns. Her work led to the creation of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, which has come under increased scrutiny in the past weeks with the discovery of what’s been reported as “significant quantities of human remains” buried in septic tanks on the grounds of the home for unwed mothers and their children operated by Catholic nuns from 1922 to 1961. Despite the fact that the Irish government has held the outrageously high death registers of the home since 2011, the excavation process was only begun by the Commission of Investigation in November of last year, leaving many stakeholders wondering: Why this inhumane delay in justice?

Continued at source: The Humanist: https://thehumanist.com/commentary/will-tuam-babies-scandal-ignite-investigation-church-state-relations-ireland