Why I ‘Stand in Awe of all Mná’ Voting to Repeal the Eighth

Why I ‘Stand in Awe of all Mná’ Voting to Repeal the Eighth
Regardless of the result on Friday, Irish women have started a rebellion, and women everywhere are grateful.

May 23, 2018
Colleen Hennessy

The Ireland where I lived and worked for ten years, from 2005 to 2015, didn’t have abortion. That Ireland took pride in the Eighth Amendment, added to the nation’s Constitution in 1983 by popular vote, in which the state gave fetuses the same rights as pregnant people in all medical and legal circumstances.

Conversations about abortion were of course happening, and Irish women have and will always need abortions. Every day at least ten women and girls travel from Ireland to UK abortion clinics, but these are lonely journeys without one’s community of doctors, family, or friends.

continued: https://rewire.news/article/2018/05/23/stand-awe-mna-voting-repeal-eighth/


The Catholic Church is absent in Ireland’s abortion referendum

The Catholic Church is absent in Ireland’s abortion referendum
Abortion in Ireland is like gay marriage, emblematic of moving on from a religious past

Melanie McDonagh
5 May 2018

The Irish referendum on abortion takes place in just under three weeks’ time, and while the polls suggest a hefty majority in favour, the narrative of inexorable change towards a more liberal Ireland sometimes goes off script. At a feminist forum last month, the anarchic grande dame of Irish republican feminism, Nell McCafferty, 74, brooded out loud: ‘I’ve been trying to make up my mind on abortion. Is it the killing of a human being?’ She couldn’t answer. ‘But it’s not that I’m unable — I am unwilling to face some of the facts about abortion.’

Continued: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/the-catholic-church-is-absent-in-irelands-abortion-referendum/


Ireland – The Women’s Podcast: Reflecting on the Repeal movement

The Women’s Podcast: Reflecting on the Repeal movement
Writer Una Mullally and poet Elaine Feeney talk to Kathy Sheridan about Repeal the 8th book

Thu, Apr 5, 2018
Jennifer Ryan

“Social change is creative change and it’s important to remember the artistic expressions that have brought us to this place and have been a part of it too,” says journalist Una Mullally, about why she has put together an anthology of writing and art on the Repeal movement.

The Repeal the 8th book is a collection of stories, essays, poetry and photography around the movement for reproductive rights in Ireland in the lead up to a referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the constitution on May 25th.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/the-women-s-podcast-reflecting-on-the-repeal-movement-1.3450592


Ireland- Myths and lies about abortion must be debunked

Myths and lies about abortion must be debunked
We are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs – but not our own facts

Apr 2, 2018
David Robert Grimes

Abortion has long been a contentious issue in Ireland, replete with emotive and frequently dubious rhetoric. This was recently exemplified by Save the Eighth billboard campaign featuring an abortion nurse detailing the horrors he had witnessed.

This testimony was somewhat undermined by the revelation it had been fabricated, leading to the unedifying sight of campaign manager John McGuirk rapidly pivoting from legal threats to grudging acceptance, a volte-face hard to distinguish from surrealist performance art. As the referendum looms ever closer, it is inevitable campaigning will become more charged, both online and off.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/myths-and-lies-about-abortion-must-be-debunked-1.3448176


Ireland – We need to talk indoors, not shout outdoors about abortion

Nell McCafferty: We need to talk indoors, not shout outdoors about abortion
No conversation about abortion is complete without celebration of the magnificent plenitude of conception, pregnancy and motherhood

Sat, Mar 24, 2018
Nell McCafferty

We need to have a conversation about conception, pregnancy and motherhood. After that, we need to talk about abortion.

The way I talked about both changed during the infamous and successful campaign of 1981-83 to introduce the Eighth Amendment into the constitution, which put the fertilised egg on a par with a pregnant woman.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/nell-mccafferty-we-need-to-talk-indoors-not-shout-outdoors-about-abortion-1.3428291


Ireland – Ann Lovett: Death of a ‘strong, kick-ass girl’

Ann Lovett: Death of a ‘strong, kick-ass girl’
Ann Lovett died aged 15 after giving birth at a grotto in Granard, Co Longford in 1984. Had she lived, she would turn 50 next month

Sat, Mar 24, 2018
Rosita Boland

“I remember being outside the church when the hearse arrived . . . I remember when they were taking the coffin out of the hearse, there was a collective gasp . . . Usually at a removal, you’d hear a mumble of people talking. But apart from that gasp, there was silence. What could anyone say?”

Nuala Ledwith, who lived three miles outside Granard, Co Longford, at the time, is talking about the removal of Ann Lovett and her stillborn son to St Mary’s Church in Granard on Thursday, February 2nd, 1984. Two days previously, Ann Lovett had died after giving birth in the grotto adjoining St Mary’s. She was 15. The repercussions of her death continue to resonate powerfully in Irish society, more than three decades later.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/ann-lovett-death-of-a-strong-kick-ass-girl-1.3429792


Ireland: Abortion campaigners tell Government what they really, really want

Abortion campaigners tell Government what they really, really want
March for Choice: ‘Free, safe, legal’ is the slogan as thousands muster in Dublin
Sat, Sep 30, 2017
Ronan McGreevy

Abortion is a black and white issue. Those Repeal jumpers, designed in anger last year by campaigner Anna Cosgrave, have become a ubiquitous fashion and political statement.

On Saturday lunchtime there were thousands of them in evidence. Those elemental colours, symbolising darkness and light, stood out against the bright shafts of sunlight glinting on the ornamental pool in the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square in Dublin.

Continued at source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/abortion-campaigners-tell-government-what-they-really-really-want-1.3239929