On the Ground in Ireland: Fighting to Repeal Abortion Ban

On the Ground in Ireland: Fighting to Repeal Abortion Ban
Ireland's abortion ban "was a disaster for women’s rights, it was a disaster for the education of Irish children, but it really infected every aspect of Irish society and we are still undoing the legacy of this.”

May 23, 2018
Sarah Jaffe

In 1983, when Irish people voted in the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, the county of Donegal had some of the highest vote totals for the near-total abortion ban via fetal “personhood.” More than 80 percent of voters in the rural northwest of Ireland voted for the amendment. It was therefore a surprise to see it dotted with bright pink “yes” signs reading “Our Bodies, Our Choice” Monday and Tuesday before the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

The pink signs that I saw most often are from People Before Profit, a socialist party that organizes and holds elected office in the Republic of Ireland as well as in Northern Ireland, and I accompanied its canvassers into Donegal to see about the state of things in this conservative part of Ireland.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2018/05/23/ground-ireland-fighting-repeal-abortion-ban/