From left: Chairperson of Labour Women Sinead Ahern, Dr Peter Boylan, Dr Mary Henry, chairperson of the Labour Women Commission on Repeal of the Eighth Amendment, Judge Catherine McGuinness, Chairperson of Labour Women and Senator Ivana Bacik in Buswells in Dublin.
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The framework legislation we have prepared…will allow abortion on four medically certified grounds: risk to life; risk to health; rape; and fatal foetal abnormality. The test for assessing risk to health will be that of “real and substantial risk”, a test with which doctors are familiar from existing law. A stricter test will apply for risk to health where abortion is sought beyond the first trimester.
Senator Ivana Bacik, launching Labour’s ‘Repeal the 8th Amendment’ Bill’ this morning
Hmm.
Elaine writes:
These predictably lame and overly cautious proposals from Labour do at least include fatal foetal abnormality. Now can someone explain why they voted against Clare Daly’s bill earlier this year and will they reveal the advice the AG gave that the bill was unconstitutional?
Anyone?
(RollingNews.ie)
Why does Labour Women need two chairpersons?
Sinead Ahern & Peter Boylan appear to be some of these gender fluid people.
Thanks Pedantic Pat, fixed now. Sorry.
I still see 2 Chairpersons of labour women in there and 1 chairperson of labour womens commision.
Chairperson is a stupid word. The man in chairman comes from manager and is nothing to do with gender.
Where does the “man” in manager come from?
It comes from the latin manus which means hand.
Nope.
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/leadership/38838-origin-of-the-species-is-chairman-a-gender-neutral-term.html
http://www.word-detective.com/112304.html
that put realPolithicks in their gender neutral box :p
Who cares though?
Chairperson is an unwiedly bloody word. If you want, use chairwoman. If you are truly an evolved person just just chairman for both genders and fight more important and less pedantic battles.
Definitions differ Caroline. Riddick’s Rules of Procedure is not alone in claiming it comes from manus. Whatever the truth of the matter “chair” is a more acceptable term for those afraid of offending gendersensibilists.
I only agitate on behalf of the noble discipline of etymology. Your human word-based proxy gender battles do not interest me *flies off*
There are undiscovered species of wood lice in the amazon that don’t believe that for a secon Caroline :P
*definitely keeps straight face*
http://i.imgur.com/Lq0uKyS.gif
Thanks for your input Ms Solo, but as Caroline has demonstrated Repro’s explanation is incorrect. Do try to follow along.
You say incorrect. I say disputed.
Why is it such a big deal to you?
I’m bored.
It doesn’t address those who don’t want to be pregnant for whatever reasons.
While its easy to trot out the rape & incest reasons, in reality, should a trial have taken place to prove these cases first? Will there be a chain of evidence used if abortions are performed in these cases to prove guilt?
What if the reasons cited later turn out to be incorrect in court, will a woman be charged with a fraudulently obtained abortion?
Its for these reasons that choice needs to be part of the equation.
tbh the whole “bad case” abortion is a bit of a political sham.
Most of those proponants of this want abortions for all (or on-demand in the parlance of the day)
But know it’s politically unsound to come out with that.
So its a fudge by people trying to appear as benign at possible
* Please note the issues are real to the people in these situations , I mean in political terms it’s mostly dishonest
i am very uneasy at a woman having to prove rape before she is ‘allowed’ to have a termination.
But you’re not a woman.
That’s ok. I believe men are actually allowed support their partners and the rest of the other half of the human race now.
Having a willy shouldn’t make you one, pete.
Elaine. Clarence Daly’s FFA abortion bill was unconstitutional, surely, because it sought to allow for the abortion of a pregnancy where a mother’s life was not at risk.
Whatever your view on abortion, surely that’s the simple, straightforward reason Daly’s bill was thought to be unconstitutional.
Labour’s plan is to remove any mention of the right to life of the unborn from the Constitution, meaning their legislation wouldn’t be unconstitutional 8n that regard.
Clare!
While it’s great that this might go through, it’s possibly very bad news for the pro choice movement. These are the ‘palatable’ options for abortion and in any referendum the pro choice side would lean heavily on these. If these were legal, abortion on demand would be a much harder sell.
They better hope that much-vaunted slippery slope the pro-life movement keeps warning about is real!
That’s obviously a plus. However, take these out of the equation and the ‘no term limits’ gang start to get a lot louder.
It’ll be grand. There’s a fully functional floodgate at the bottom of said slope.
no. abortion on demand, please.
yeah, screw those women in mortal danger, hold out for free for all abortion!
Are you offering to be the one to gather the physical proof from a woman who was raped so they can have an abortion?
Are you the one offering to pay their costs during a trial to prove they were raped?
Are you the one offering to adopt the baby if the trial lasts longer than the window for abortion passes?
Are you going to be there to hold her hand when the strain is too much for all the extra strain having to assemble this proof puts on a woman?
Like Fupp you are!
Abortion by request after one sympathetic counselling session for all please. (This is the UK model and it works very well)
No.
No.
Yes.
Yes.
Great …..
In 2013, there were 2467 rapes reported in Ireland.
(Source – Rape Crisis Network Statistics http://www.rcni.ie/wp-content/uploads/RCNI-National-Statistics-2013.pdf)
40% of these were carried out against adults (17+)
Out of these 986 adults rapes, 89% were against women
Out of these 877 reported rapes, there are no statistics for pregnancy. Let’s presume the statistic in on a par with the national average (3% of women of child-baring age pregnant on average nationally per year)
That is 26 babies to raise and 26 mothers a year to get through counselling.
Best of luck!
Completely and utterly pointless waste of time.
We’ve seen how little impact Labour has on Fine Gael when it’s a third of the government, anyone who thinks they’ll have *more* clout after their forthcoming decimation needs their head examined.
They brought Fine Gael along on gay marriage. Why not this?
Earlier this year I had to travel to the Uk after being given a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality. So along with the grief of knowing that a much wanted pregnancy had gone wrong, I had to deal with my own medical team washing their hands of me. I will never forget the horror of that journey, how scared I was that something might go wrong when I was away from home. I still have nightmares about it. And I will never, ever, stop being angry that was I was essentially abandoned once I explained that I could not endure waiting for the baby to die in utero or waiting to be induced at 36 weeks and have the baby die at birth. I told my doctor that it would destroy me, that I would not survive that. And that was the absolute truth. But there was nobody in this country who would look after me. I left the hospital with a list of phone numbers in the UK, and that was that.
I’m too angry to say any more about it now, but every time I see access to abortion being treated as some kind of academic exercise I am reminded of what I had to do and how little I, and the others like me, seem to matter.
Thank you for sharing. I’m very sorry you had to go through such an awful experience.
Sorry to hear about your experience, my heart goes out to you. Please believe me when I say you are not the only one. I had an abortion too a few years ago and please believe me when I say you will get recover from all the pain you feel now. I went on to have two healthy children afterwards. At the time, I did not believe that this would be possible because of how isolated the experience of abortion left me (and most Irishwomen I have talked to since) feeling. It’s preposterous.
Modern medicine is so well developed in this area that they may have even improved your chances of carrying a baby to term next time as the process removes completely any infections that may have been lurking.
Some of the regular readers on this page, shared their abortion stories on this post: https://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/08/22/i-took-the-boat/ It turned out to be a very decent humane thread perhaps because it was not issues driven just women telling their stories without making an agenda of the wrongs and the rights of their choices. It may help to know you are not alone.
Thank you for sharing and I’m very sorry to hear what you went through. The fact that real woman and their families are hugely affected by this ludicrous state of affairs needs to be talked about more and more to hopefully make people see sense.
Hi Burley,
That is horrible. I still cannot believe in this day and age that women are treated as vessels for an unviable baby just because of laws written in reverence to an invisible deity.
I have the details of support groups that I am happy to share if you need them. There are people you can go and talk.to if you need to. Unfortunately because of trolling IRL by anti-women groups, the details cannot be shared publically.
I just wanted to let you know that not everyone in this country will let you down the way the medical profession and the law have.
What do we want?
Abortion by request for pregnancies up to 3 months for all. Prior to one sympathetic counselling session with a doctor or nurse to explain the medical outcomes.
Abortion by request for pregnancies from 3-9 months assessed by medical need or non-viability of the foetus. Prior to one sympathetic medical examination by a doctor to confirm the medical outcomes.
When do we want it?
Bloody now. We have waited too long while fuppwits from both sides have argued over terminology.
You don’t mean “Prior to”. You mean “preceded by”.
And no. We don’t all want that.
you may not, other people who are women, do.
Other people who are men want it to.
if that is what women of child-bearing age want, let them have it. Who are we as men to say otherwise. It is not our bodies so the least we can do is support our sisters, cousins, wives, girlfriends, friends ect.
Well it sucks to be you then because that is what most reasonable people who want to support the women in their lives want.
+1
Too right, Anne, too bloody right. But I don’t see why you need a doctor before 3 months, there are no medical consequences – no risk of increased cancer, no mental health problems, no risk to future fertility. You want it done, you get it with the best care available and based on evidence not crack pots.
Hi broken record news and thanks for your comment,
The only reason for having the councelling session with a sympathetic doctor or nurse would be to make sure that you are certain of your decision, to discuss what your options are for a termination and to discuss the medical consequences of your decision. Not all terminations are done by medical procedure.
There can be medical side effects such as reaction to the anesthetic, extended bleeding afterwards and risk of infection that any woman going for a medical abortion must be made aware of. It is also a chance to ask questions to someone who is impartial as to what you eventually decide. There is also the oppertunity for a medical professional to make sure you are not having the procedure under duress for instance, in the case of some girls who are trafficked for the sex trade.
I had an abortion you see and I know first hand that this is a way of doing things that is fair for the woman and fair for the medical team who will be looking after her during and after the procedure.
+1