Slow passage: All eyes on Seanad as delays risk timeline of abortion bill

Slow passage: All eyes on Seanad as delays risk timeline of abortion bill

Laura Larkin
December 7 2018

Senators are wont to complain that nobody pays attention to the upper house - they won't have that to say over the coming days, as their handling of the abortion legislation will come under intense scrutiny.

The painfully slow passage of the legislation through the Dáil - which saw extensive debate, some old-fashioned mudslinging, and no meaningful change to the bill in the end - put the timeline for services at risk.

continued: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/slow-passage-all-eyes-on-seanad-as-delays-risk-timeline-of-abortion-bill-37603274.html

Ireland – Minister for Health introduces abortion bill to Seanad

Minister for Health introduces abortion bill to Seanad

Updated / Thursday, 6 Dec 2018
By Ailbhe Conneely, RTÉ News Political reporter

The Minister for Health has outlined the approach he will be taking regarding the consideration of the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill in the Seanad.

Introducing the bill this afternoon, Simon Harris acknowledged that people had different views on the legislation.

While he said the job of legislators was to scrutinise, Mr Harris said he would do what he promised the people.

continued: https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2018/1206/1015590-seanad-abortion-bill/

Ireland Votes to Legalize Abortion. What Comes Next?

Ireland Votes to Legalize Abortion. What Comes Next?
Ireland voted in a landslide to support abortion rights. But making abortion care available will take much more.

May 26, 2018
Sarah Jaffe

To Isolde Carmody, Ireland’s overwhelming vote to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution was a vote to continue down the road that her great-grand-uncle, Joseph Plunkett, and his contemporaries fought for in 1916, in the first steps toward an independent Irish Republic.

“Joe was definitely a feminist, a revolutionary. He deeply believed in equality and in social justice, and that was why he was involved in the revolution in 1916,” Carmody told Rewire.News. Her great-grandmother and grandmother had fought for women’s health care and access to information on abortion rights. She continued that tradition campaigning for “yes” in Leitrim.

Continued; https://rewire.news/article/2018/05/26/ireland-votes-legalize-abortion-comes-next/

Ireland: Abortion and the eighth amendment: putting it up to the politicians

Abortion and the eighth amendment: putting it up to the politicians
The abortion committee has voted in favour of repealing the eighth amendment — now it’s up to the Dail

Justine McCarthy
December 17 2017

After 13 weeks, 16 meetings, 47 witnesses and sporadic outbreaks of umbrage, a stunned silence suddenly descended on committee room three in the basement of Leinster House on Wednesday evening. The Oireachtas committee on the eighth amendment had just voted to recommend the repeal of the constitution's most divisive clause, the 34-year ban on abortion.

“Should we clap or what?” asked Brid Smith, a Solidarity-People Before Profit TD who has told how she took a boat to England in 1985 to have a pregnancy terminated. Laughter rippled through the public gallery and around the horseshoe-shaped committee desk. It stopped where Rónán Mullen, an independent senator, and the TDs Mattie McGrath, an independent, and Peter Fitzpatrick of Fine Gael sat together, stony-faced.

Continued at source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ireland/abortion-and-the-eighth-amendment-putting-it-up-to-the-politicians-fjz8f0pzm

Ireland: No restriction on abortion in first 12 weeks, say TDs

No restriction on abortion in first 12 weeks, say TDs

Stephen O’Brien, Political Editor
December 10 2017

The Oireachtas committee on the eighth amendment is likely to vote in favour of abortion without restriction in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy when it agrees its final report on Wednesday.

Committee sources say there appears to be a majority in favour of accepting the recommendation of the citizens’ assembly that termination of pregnancy, without restriction, should be lawful up to 12 weeks’ gestation.

Continued at source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ireland/no-restriction-on-abortion-in-first-12-weeks-say-tds-vkdrmtlf9

Ireland: Handmaid’s Tales at abortion committee

Handmaid’s Tales at abortion committee

Justine McCarthy
November 19 2017

Forget science fiction — the eighth amendment debates are truly dystopian

Tammy Wynette was right — sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. Ever more so, these days, when 21 parliamentarians gather in Leinster House each Wednesday to discuss abortion. It’s a topic guaranteed to elicit deeply held grievances, frustration, feelings of victimhood, accusations of prejudice and spittle-licking outrage at perceived injustices, and it does — from men.

Women are in a majority of one on the joint committee on the eighth amendment to the constitution. When its work is done, all of them ought to be awarded a medal, regardless of their personal views on abortion, for their sheer endurance and dignity. For to sit in that room with a womb — or the memory of having had one — is to be subjected to a sort of medieval torture.

Continued at source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ireland/handmaids-tales-at-abortion-committee-f5fsw3rgq

Ireland: Tensions over witnesses’ letters at Eighth Amendment committee

Tensions over witnesses' letters at Eighth Amendment committee
Updated / Wednesday, 8 Nov 2017

Chair of the Oireachtas committee on the Eighth Amendment has told members that she will not be reading letters of witnesses into the record of the committee, if they choose not to attend.

Senator Catherine Noone was returning to an earlier request by Deputy Mattie McGrath of the Rural Independent Group, who requested that letters be those who did not attend today be read by the chair.

Continued at source: https://www.rte.ie/news/2017/1108/918537-oireachtas-eighth-amendment-committee/