Free Passage

at

An Irish solution for an Irish problem.

Daze and Orla write:

We think Irish women should have the right to choose – along with the thousands of women who marched at the Repeal the 8th rally last weekend in Dublin.

We also think Ryanair, an Irish company, should give free flights to women to come over to England and get their abortions legally.

We’re a young creative team currently on placement at advertising agencies inLondon. We were trained at the School of Communication Arts in solving problems, and this would go some way to solving Ryanair’s terrible PR at the moment, as well as women in the Republic getting safe and legal medical procedures.

Daze And Orla

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98 thoughts on “Free Passage

  1. Panty Christ

    I’m all for repealing and stuff but jumping on the anti Ryanair bandwagon is opportunistic guff. Womans shouldn’t have to travel abroad in the first place.

  2. Birdie

    But in order for that to work the women & their partners would have to waiver anonymity/their private life to a corporation… I don’t see the dignity in that.

    Good advertising is not always about controversy and loud flashes of look at me!

  3. Custo

    This seems a little bit naive.

    Why would Ryanair actively seek to potentially alienate nearly half their customers?

    1. newsjustin

      It wouldn’t seem that naive if one naively believed that everyone thinks the same about abortion.

      1. snowey

        you can bet your life if any airline was offering free abortion flights , then a decent portion of the flying public would actively avoid Ryanair for reason of decency or moral outrage
        pro-life people travel too and have spending power

        the idea is one of the most entitled things I’ve heard in a while.

  4. newsjustin

    Michael O’Leary: “Listen, we need to maximise positive news stories now and get that shit storm behind us. Ideas, I want ideas!”

    Executive Type: “Ok Boss. How about we give free flights…”

    MO’L: “What!?”

    Executive Type: ” No. Wait. There’s more. We give free flights to people and wade up to our eyeballs into the abortion debate in Ireland.”

    MO’L: “Oh yeah. You’re totally fired.”

  5. Brother Barnabas

    This sort of naive guff isn’t going to help.

    It’s a PR effort on the part of Daisy and Orla, that’s all. And not even an original one. Wasn’t there a call for Ryanair to provide free flights for people to come back to vote for marriage equaity referendum?

    1. ahjayzis

      +1

      This is two ‘creatives’ marketing themselves, most cynically.

      Ryanair, these two, or anyone else, could donate to the Abortion Support Network and achieve the same effect a proper way.

      https://www.asn.org.uk/

  6. Seamus Keane

    While I am absolutely in favour of repealing the 8th Amendment, I don’t think a “creative” solution which allows Ryanair to grab some Kudos is appropriate in light of the fact that its problems almost certainly stem from the despicable manner in which it treats its pilots. Solidarity with another exploited group might be a better option here, whilst exploring other creative options to highlight the injustice of the 8th Amendment.

    1. Murtles

      In a Daze with Orla more like it. What an absolute slap in the face to a cohort of Irish Citizens, many facing a distressing situation, just so these 2 can promote their own business. Get outta here.

  7. Rob_G

    I’m sure this was made somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but presumably it would make commercial sense for Ryanair to support the 8th amendment, given that it provides them 3,000-ish return flights each year?

  8. Jake38

    “We also think Ryanair, an Irish company, should give free flights to women to come over to England and get their abortions legally………………”

    Good god. What colour is the sky in their world?

  9. Gorev Mahagut

    Does absolutely everything have to be reduced to commerce, private enterprise and PR? Maybe head back to the School of Communication Arts and see if you can find what they did with your sense of humanity.

    1. ahjayzis

      Sacrifice a goat to The Prone, that she bestows you with better communications arts.

      What I would</i< say, is go in peace and I'll see you going forward

  10. bisted

    …the School of Communication Arts sounds straight out of Harry Potter…I can just imagine the type of scary crone who would run it…

  11. Daisy Chainsaw

    The thing is, it’s not the flight that’s the major cost, that’s about €50. Irish women pay hundreds, some pay over a thousand pounds for their Irish abortion in the UK, they don’t just rock up to BPAS or Marie Stopes and get it for free because Irish women have no entitlement to free abortion services on the NHS in the UK. Then there’s the other costs like overnight accommodation, transport to and from Dublin/Shannon/Rosslare etc although a lot of women day trip because they can’t afford to stay over or to be away from work or families for too long (54% of abortions are to mothers).

    It’s a catchy hook and it’s doing what it set out to do (get notice for the people involved), but a free flight abroad for your Irish abortion isn’t the answer. Repeal the 8th and give Irish women free, safe and legal access to abortion services in their own country, rather than hypocritically continuing to outsource it.

      1. Cian

        Murder?
        do you think that the 100,000+ Irish women that have had abortions should all be arrested and charged with murder? Should we build a super-prison to hold them all?

        1. snowey

          the number of women doesn’t make it right.
          I think it is murder although legalised in most places…doesn’t make it right

          1. snowey

            I can give you that.
            these nuances aren’t important to me
            its’ still killing though , the law can be an ass and not reflect right/wrong

            although I have heard the term “state sanctioned murder” before….
            Is the USA dropping bombs on wedding parties not murder..? or my pal in the Philippines Duarte not ordering murder that is lawful.
            what say you, listrade?

          2. Listrade

            I didn’t pass any judgement other than if it is legal it isn’t murder.

            War or military action is governed by numerous laws. Some actions in wars are illegal. Some are morally dubious, even reprehensible, but still legal.

            Legal ones aren’t murder.

            In criminal law, unlawful killing is broken down into different categories and different crimes. Not all unlawful killing is murder.

            But of we’re going to pepper a debate with unhelpful whataboutery and emotive terms rather than actually debating any of the moral and health issues, we could at least make an effort to be right in the terms we use.

            So what say I? If it’s legal it isn’t murder. Even if it isn’t legal, it’s only murder in certain circumstances.

          3. Zuppy International

            Hey Listrade,

            So if we make a rule (pass legislation) insisting that all left-handed red-heads can be hunted down and shot on sight then that isn’t murder?

            Where did you find such exquisite moral relativism?

          4. Listrade

            Hi Zuppy, I found it in an archaic documemt called a dictionary whereby murder is the unlawful killing of a human being. Therefore of it is a killing that is permissible, it isn’t murder.

          5. Zuppy International

            You’re deliberately conflating lawful and legal, unlawful and illegal, right and wrong.

            I know you’re better than that.

          6. Listrade

            Erm nope. If it is permissible (or not forbidden) in law, it is lawful. Therefore if it is permissible to take “abortion pills” it isn’t unlawful killing.

      2. Biorenewed

        Murder is free in terms of cost if you plan it properly using items already at your disposal.

        A termination pill will cost about £550 – you will need to be in the UK for at least two days after you take the first pill to be given the follow up pill
        A medical termination will cost up to £2,040

        Travel from Ireland to the UK can cost from $100 to $900 return
        Accommodation in London – anything from $40 to $100 a night

        Only murder is against the law. Having a termination is not murder. No matter how many times you wrongly insist it is.

        You shouldn’t murder people even if it is free as that is not really a good enough reason to do it. You should also let the law know if you know of any murders taking place as they are kind of keen to discourage that sort of behavior.

        1. Zuppy International

          The per-meditated destruction of a human life is the very definition of murder.

          Abortion is the per-meditated destruction of a human life.

          Abortion = Murder.

          QED.

          1. Listrade

            Nope. If legalised it isn’t murder. Whether premeditated or per-meditated.

            Your statement=wrong

            QED

          2. Zuppy International

            So if I get an act of parliment passed allowing me to kill all your cousins over five feet tall, that’s perfectly ok cos it’s “legal”?

          3. Listrade

            Morals are different. Happy to discuss morals without falsely using whataboutery or emotive language.

            It’s not a difficult point to grasp: if it isn’t unlawful it isn’t murder.

          4. Zuppy International

            Hitler was legal,

            Slavery was legal.

            Bailing out broken banks was legal.

            Legal don’t make it right.

          5. Nice Anne1

            Yes and there has to be independent life or the chance of independent life for murder to take place.

            A fetus is not independent of a mother until about 21 weeks when it has a 10% change of surviving outside a womb. It is not independent life.

            I get that yelling “murder murder everywhere” fills in some sort of need for you but that does not change facts or science or logic just because you need it to.

    1. Anomanomanom

      While I agree with having the choice and it being made legal in Ireland, why should it be free. Unless its for genuine medical reasons you should certainly have to pay.

      1. rotide

        That’s a point I haven’t seen discussed much actually. Although I’m not sure the repeal side are asking for free abortions though?

      2. Daisy Chainsaw

        Smokers get free chemo after deliberately destroying their bodies with cigarettes, drinkers get free livers, people with bad diets get free heart surgery. Nobody gets judgemental when these taxpayers get free medical treatment, so why shouldn’t women have an abortion paid for by their taxes too?

        1. Rob_G

          A lot of these treatments would be out of the reach of any one apart from the super-wealthy, whereas an abortion would not.

          I can certainly see the argument for free or very, very, cheap abortions for people who can’t afford one themselves, but I don’t see why an accountant on €100k shouldn’t have to pay for theirs.

          1. Daisy Chainsaw

            Maybe if smokers stopped smoking and saved the €20 a day spent on fags they could afford chemo. Why should thousands of euro be wasted on someone who deliberately poisoned themselves?

            In the majority of cases, lung cancer and heart disease are due to “lifestyle choices”. Why are these self inflicted lifestyle choices pandered to at significant cost to the taxpayer, yet people get all self righteous over a woman’s “lifestyle choice” not to be pregnant, despite taking all necessary precautions?

          2. Rob_G

            While I agree that it is very unfortunate that people decide to kill themselves with cigarettes and and abusing alcohol, you are getting into the area of only ‘deserving’ people being able to access healthcare, which is a tricky, ethics-wise.

            To whit:

            “Maybe if [women] stopped [having sex] and saved €20 on [lingerie, I guess] they could afford [an abortion]”.

            People (those who can afford it anyway) are expected to pay for for things like dentistry, physio, etc. Not really sure why reproductive health should be any different (condoms and the pill aren’t free).

          3. MoyestWithExcitement

            “you are getting into the area of only ‘deserving’ people being able to access healthcare, which is a tricky, ethics-wise”

            She’s not doing that. *You* are doing that. She is just turning *your* argument around on you.

            “Not really sure why reproductive health should be any different”

            There’s you deciding who deserves what. The clue is in the name, anyway. Reproductive HEALTH. Do you have any idea of the multitude of health problems being pregnant can cause? You’re about 18 so probably not. Google it. Sex isn’t a personal hobby, FFS. It’s why every single one of us is here. It’s the whole point of life! Whatever about the spiritual nonsense, the point of your existence is to stay alive long enough to reproduce so the species continues to exist. It is a compulsion. It is also good for mental health. Making it easy and safe is good for all of us. Seriously, conservatives and right wingers are just weird. Really really weird.

          4. Daisy Chainsaw

            If women stopped having sex, there wouldn’t be a need for abortion… but I guess, deep down, that’s why a lot of people are anti choice. They hate the idea of women having sex for fun rather than procreation purposes.

            Maybe abortion access will be included in VHI/Laya/Irish Life plans.

          5. MoyestWithExcitement

            “(condoms and the pill aren’t free)”

            Right wing talking points like this are so fundamentally stupid, it is genuinely hard to fathom how grown adults use them without considering what they mean. (in so far as they effectively mean nothing. *Nothing* human made is free. *Nobody* is saying you don’t have a right to an opinion. Those kids are *already* alive and “should haves” aren’t going to put food in their stomachs)

          6. MoyestWithExcitement

            “but I guess, deep down, that’s why a lot of people are anti choice. They hate the idea of women having sex for fun rather than procreation purposes”

            A1. It’s probably not a coincidence that the most vocal right wingers when it comes to abortion and sex in general don’t look like people who are very comfortable talking to the opposite sex.

          7. Rob_G

            It’s gas coming back to a thread to see all of Moyest’s stopped-in-moderation comments unleashed in one shrill blast :)

            @Daisy
            “Maybe abortion access will be included in VHI/Laya/Irish Life plans.”

            – I don’t see why not.

            I just don’t think that the argument that ‘there be access to abortion for all’ is the same as ‘abortion should always be free’.

          1. mildred st. meadowlark

            For some women, is a life threatening state though. For example, pregnancy induced diabetes can be fatal. Placenta praevia can be fatal. Pre-eclampsia can be fatal. There are plenty of risks associated with pregnancy, and those listed are the more common ones.

          2. rotide

            Absolutely. And thats one of the reasons why the 8th needs to be gone. So that situations like that can be safely discounted when having this sort of discussion.

            Like with all due respect, Daisy wasn’t specifically talking about those conditions when calling for free abortion.

          3. Zuppy International

            Abortion huggers always compare pregnancy to a disease (it’s part of their cognitive dissonance).

            However, if there is a threat to the mothers’ life during pregnancy then – under
            this legislation – it is permitted to kill the unborn child to protect the mother.

            So the argument that we must repeal the 8th to protect women is false and misleading.

            Just like most pro-abortion arguments.

            .

          4. Listrade

            hi Zuppy, I’m back at semantics again. Abortion huggers comparing pregnancy to disease would be a false equivalence not cognitive dissonance. But I’ll admit, it sounded good.

            Technically it isnt false and misleading to say we need a repeal to protect mothers, but that’s a minor point. Oh wait it’s the whole point.

            You see we have the legislation but doctors are scared to use it. So we still get mothers at risk. They’re particuarly scared when it’s mental health, so we really really need something there. Also it doesn’t cover the trauma of FFA and being made to carry those through to term and deliver it. Surely they need protection too?

            So the legislation protects a very very small percentage of mothers who are vulnerable to harm from a pregnancy.

            But at least you admit some pro-abortion arguments are valid. That’s a positive.

          5. Daisy Chainsaw

            POLDPA is as much a failure as the 8th amendment. At least 2 women (girls, really) have been locked up and force fed, rather than being given the abortion they were legally permitted to have.

          6. Zuppy International

            Or maybe it’s because abortions (which require up to 3 days preparation depending on the length of the pregnancy) don’t work in an emergency situation.

            An ex-abortioist explain.

            “In cases where a mother’s life is seriously threatened by her pregnancy, a doctor more often than not doesn’t have 36 hours, much less 72 hours, to resolve the problem. Let me illustrate with a real -life case that I managed while at the Albany Medical Center. A patient arrived one night at 28 weeks gestation with severe pre-eclampsia or toxemia.

            Her blood pressure on admission was 220/160. As you are probably aware, a normal blood pressure is approximately 120/80. This patient’s pregnancy was a threat to her life and the life of her unborn child. She could very well be minutes or hours away from a major stroke. This case was managed successfully by rapidly stabilizing the patient’s blood pressure and “terminating” her pregnancy by Cesarean section. She and her baby did well. This is a typical case in the world of high-risk obstetrics. In most such cases, any attempt to perform an abortion “to save the mother’s life” would entail undue and dangerous delay in providing appropriate, truly life-saving care.”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8szDctI9lXM

      3. Listrade

        The issue there is that if we were to get legislation here i would expect it to be akin to GB where it requires approval from a GP based on different categories of medical issues. There is no category for “I don’t want the child”. So in theory all abortions are for “genuine medical purposes” whether those purpose are stated or not.

        1. Zuppy International

          So what you’re saying is that is necessary to lie to procure an abortion.

          Sounds like the tactics of the pro-choice movement in toto.

    2. Casey_online

      This is an American thing brought in by anti-choice legislators in some states to add more administration to the process of getting a termination.

      Not all states require one in the case of a termination.
      –Of the minority that do, no state requires one before 20 weeks.

      The norm for the majority of states like California, Carolina and New York is to use the FDC for stillborn deaths only.

      In Virginia there are 3 types of FDC certificates:
      –Green – Pregnant woman has died a natural death. (Issues if the fetus +24 weeks only)
      Red – Pregnant women has dies by Suicide, Homicide, Accident, or Undetermined. (Fetus +24 weeks only)
      Yellow – Fetal death certificate. Required for reported for reported fetal deaths including terminations and stillborn. Reporting in the case of terminations is optional up +32 weeks. After that it is compulsory.

      A fetal death cert is not the same as a death cert. The embryo in all these cases never had a live birth and so does not get a death certificate. They are not a matter of public record and in the states where they are not used as a tool to shame and obstruct women having an abortion, they are used to study the rate of stillborn births for public funding and research.

  12. Rugbyfan

    ‘We also think Ryanair, an Irish company, should give free flights to women to come over to England and get their abortions legally’

    Sometimes it’s best not to think!!

    1. snowey

      true,
      while I’m aware the broadsheet is on the pro choice wagon (and I’m not but we can co exist) why would BS even float this guff?

  13. Clampers Outside!

    Problem solvers solution is to create another problem by pushing the company into social issues.

    Doesn’t sound like there was much learning of anything going on in that course………..

  14. E

    I assumed this was a joke initially. Having checked out their website and other “work” I’m still not sure.
    Once I watched the video, I thought maybe it was pro-lifers pretending to be pro-choice and attempting to make them seem like absolute morons based on how poorly the video and voice over was made. But… well.. I’m still not sure.

    It amazes me the amount of people with real talent that fear showing their work and ideas, but then there are people like this. Dunning–Kruger effect in action.

    1. I am dazed

      +1 yep the talentless always shout the loudest.
      Twitter , Tinder & Facebook is littered with these kind of idiots. Creative seeks creative for stimulation. Follow the trail and you eventually discover what the “creative” actually does for a living…. Marketing , PR & rearranging the deckchairs at events.

  15. petey

    your reputation would have to be pretty poor if you’d offer free flights to kill babies to improve it.

        1. Daisy Chainsaw

          A woman has a much higher chance of miscarriage than abortion, but it’s not a good idea to hope nature takes its course. Much more sensible and safer to take a tablet, under medical supervision and induce the miscarriage in the first trimester.

      1. Topsy

        Daisy. Abortion v Miscarriage – no relationship as you well know, but don’t let facts get in the way if your nonsense.

    1. mildred st. meadowlark

      Isn’t it a good thing you don’t have to make the kind of choice a woman does when she finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy?

  16. Biorenewed

    This is not about Ryanair
    This is not about Repeal
    This is about using current issues to get publicity, attention, online traction….
    They succeeded.
    Nearly 60 comments here alone

    I have seen PR come up with ideas way more precocious and way more ineffective than this.

  17. MoyestWithExcitement

    “We’re a young creative team currently on placement at advertising agencies inLondon.”

    Ugh. This conversation needs more Jacintas and less Saoirses.

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