Tag Archives: Repeal

From top: Belfast, London, Glasgow and the Project Arts Centre, Dublin

A year on from Repeal.

Shining a light on the UK Government’s “inaction on reforming Northern Ireland’s abortion law”.

Via Amnesty International Ireland

A giant heart – part of an Amnesty collaboration with Irish artist Maser, who re-worked his ‘Repeal the 8th’ artwork to say ‘Now for Northern Ireland’ – was projected onto the Northern Ireland Office in Westminster, The Mac building in Belfast, the Mary Barbour statue in Glasgow, and the Project Art Centre in Dublin – where the original repeal mural was painted…

Maser sez:

“By consciously making the Repeal artwork copyright free, the public were empowered to take ownership of it, I was a messenger watching from the side lines. With the people’s fierce collective energy, the artwork built huge momentum and spread across the state

Our friends in the north are now on their journey to revoke their outdated abortion laws. I am here to show my alliance, I am your defender.”

Amnesty Ireland International

Last night: Together Again

‘Now for Northern Ireland’ projections across UK and Ireland put spotlight on strict abortion ban, one year since Ireland’s vote to repeal (Amnesty)

Legitimate political strategy?

Or something else entirely?

YOUR Broadsheet, YOUR choice.

Thanks Bebe

Minister for Health Simon Harris at a pro choice rally in Dublin last Summer

 

This afternoon.

Translation?

Go raibh maith agat.

Rollingnews

From top: Minister for Health Simon Harris flanked by Master of Holles Street Rhona Mahoney (left) and Master of the Rotunda Fergal Malone during the Eight Amendment referendum campaign last May; Terry McMahon

Have to ask this question. Not trying to offend anyone, though precedent suggests this will likely inspire that strange rage that seems to be our national language these days. Or that other reaction. Silence. Followed by censorship. But, in good conscience, it has to be asked.

Abortion, for a woman, or a couple, is a profoundly private decision. In advance of the ‘Repeal’ referendum, many people were asked to put their personal morality aside and use democracy to give those women or couples the right to make that profound decision in their own country, rather than be shamed into travelling overseas to terminate.

Repeal proved to be a divisive campaign. As both sides carved out their positions decades of inarticulate rage also spewed out. New names were given to old words and language lost all meaning. Anything that didn’t fit into the new narrative was cut out like a gangrene memory.

Yet, when it came to the ballot box, people believed their final decision was done for noble reasons. Both sides believed they were doing the right thing.

And the democratic outcome decided that the right to life of the unborn was no longer constitutionally equal to the right to life of the mother.

At least it was now clear. Easy to comprehend. Regardless of which way you voted. Regardless of the moral complexities.

But now we have politicians defining the consequence of that outcome. We are trusting them with the most profound issue of our time, even if many of them have a verifiable history of implementing policies that have destroyed people’s lives.

We are allowing them to define the reality of abortion, even if many of these men and women have already proven themselves to be psychopaths.

These trusted politicians are now questioning if our nation’s remarkable hospital staff, many of whom are legitimate conscientious objectors, should be forced to participate in abortions. Or face being struck off.

These trusted politicians are now questioning if race, gender, and physical or mental disability are valid reasons for late-term abortion. Including the termination of someone with Downs Syndrome.

These trusted politicians are now questioning if we should refuse to administer pain relief to the soon-to-be-terminated foetus on the grounds that it is just another attempt to shame the mother. Yes, you read that correctly.

Have we really gone from legitimately attempting to address the stigma of shaming a woman seeking an abortion by repealing the 8th, to insisting that a late-term foetus, who feels everything with every nerve ending in its body, should be granted no pain relief in case we cause that mother some shame?

No matter which side you were on, is there anyone out there – literally anyone – who supports the assertion that granting pain relief to an unborn child in advance of its painful death is somehow wrong?

Amid all the noise of Repeal, is this really what we voted ‘Yes’ for? If it’s not, then why in hell are we all so suddenly silent?

Terry McMahon is a filmmaker and can be found on Twitter @terrymcmahon69

Previously: Terry McMahon on Broadsheet

Rollingnews

Colm O’Gorman, of Amnesty International Ireland

Further to Amnesty International Ireland last year being told by the the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) to return a €137,000 donation to fund their campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation…

Amnesty International Ireland is pleased that its judicial review action before the Irish High Court has been resolved on the basis that the Standards in Public Office Commission accepts that the process leading to the adoption of the decision it made in November 2017 was procedurally flawed.

This decision has now been quashed.

Amnesty International Ireland has been vindicated in our decision to challenge the decision. The Commission has also confirmed that Amnesty has at all times cooperated in our responses to its inquiries into the OSF grant.”

From a statement released by Amnesty International Ireland this afternoon.

Amnesty welcomes quashing of SIPO’s decision on OSF grant (Amnesty International Ireland)

Previously: Above The Law

Rollingnews

Last evening at the junction of Clarence St and Lr George’s St, Dún Laoghaire – previously (top pic)  the location of a Yes For Repeal mural..

Ultan Mashup writes:

Not ‘Stones fans. But a nice GRMA to Dún Laoghaire and a message for Norn Iron.

Previously: Meanwhile, In Dún Laoghaire

Meanwhile…

Oh.