The hateful Eighth: artists at the frontline of Ireland’s abortion rights battle

The hateful Eighth: artists at the frontline of Ireland's abortion rights battle
As campaigning on both sides of Ireland’s abortion debate intensifies ahead of the May referendum, artists in Limerick are taking to the streets

Emine Saner
Thu 12 Apr 2018

On the road to Limerick from the airport, you can see two huge billboards funded by a Christian lobby group. One shows a foetus at 11 weeks’ gestation with the words “one of us”. Another shows a man saying he would never forget what he saw while working in an operating theatre where abortions were taking place (though the poster implies he was a nurse, the hospital revealed he was a porter). It is six weeks until the referendum in Ireland on whether the eighth amendment to the constitution – which essentially gave a foetus the same rights as the woman carrying it – should be repealed, and the campaigning on both sides is intensifying.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/apr/12/the-hateful-eighth-artists-frontline-ireland-abortion-rights-battle-eighth-amendment


Ireland: “Fianna Fáil TD told us he arranged an abortion for his niece, but he was against abortion”

'FF TD told us he arranged an abortion for his niece, but he was against abortion'
Face the 50: The X-ile Project's online gallery of women who shared experiences of abortion has grown to 50 photos

May 12, 2017
Rosita Boland

On December 10th, 2015, 11 portraits of women were posted online to a new website. Nothing unusual or remarkable about that entirely routine event. Countless new websites appear every day around the world. But this one went on to be reported by news organisations in the US, Australia, Britain, Poland, Italy, India, Belgium, Germany and France. It was picked up by outlets as diverse as The New York Times, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, The Pool, Mashable, Le Figaro and The Telegraph.

These photographs were of women who, while living in Ireland, had all shared the same experience; of having had an abortion. The gallery of their portraits was the first to go online in the X-ile Project. There were more than 10,000 hits in the first few hours when it went online originally. On May 12th, the photographs of 17 new participants in the project will be added to the ever-growing gallery, bringing the number to 50.

Continued at source: Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/ff-td-told-us-he-arranged-an-abortion-for-his-niece-but-he-was-against-abortion-1.3077115