Category Archives: Health

How to talk to your children about abortion

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Sinéad Redmond

This is a slightly reworked repost of a piece I wrote for Parents for Choice in the run up to the referendum on abortion rights in Ireland.

I have two daughters, who are 6 and 3. My six year old has been really interested in pregnancy, and pregnant women and bumps specifically, since she was three or four, and my three year old’s interest in pregnancy has started following suit in the last year. I think it’s really important when talking to children to try and reflect your own view of the world as honestly as possible in the words you use to them. My own view of pregnancy, particularly in the early stages, is that the developing pregnancy is something with the potential to grow into a baby, but not the ethical and moral equivalent of one. Because of this I’ve always made a deliberate effort to talk about a pregnancy as a “baby seed” rather than a baby. I don’t tell her people have “a baby in their tummy”, we talk about people having baby seeds that are growing into babies. When they’ve finished growing into a baby they’re ready to be born.

I use these terms because I don’t want to have to explain to a child who’s asking questions about abortion that actually a 7 week embryo or whatever isn’t actually “a baby in someone’s tummy” as I’ve been telling her all along, and so that it won’t strike her as something as immediately shocking as I think it otherwise might. We’ve looked together at diagrams and drawings of embryo and foetal development and talked about how they’re not ready to be babies just yet, that they are growing into babies.

I also talk to my six year old about how growing a baby seed into a baby is a really hard and difficult and sometimes dangerous thing for a body to do, so I think everyone should get to decide for themselves whether they do or not. And I tell her some people think everyone should have to grow baby seeds into babies whether they want to or are able to or not. It helps that she remembers my pregnancy on her younger sister, in which I nearly died and had to inject myself with heparin for the remainder of the pregnancy, so we talk about that too.

She pointed out one of the “baby” posters during the referendum campaign when we were in the car and passed one. I said “Actually that’s a baby seed but the people who paid a lot of money for those posters made it look like a baby on purpose, because they think everyone who has a baby seed should have to grow it into a baby whether they wanted to or not.” And that I think that’s telling lies and shouldn’t be allowed.

I was pregnant with her when Savita died, in 2012, and in 2017 I took her to one of the vigils in memory of her for the first time since she was old enough to ask questions. I actually found hers engagement with the vigil and its cause really poignant; I explained to her in the car on the way in that we were going to a vigil to remember a woman who died called Savita Halappanavar (she said her name very carefully) who died before it was her time to die, because she was growing a baby seed and sometimes growing a baby seed can make us very sick because it’s an awful lot of work for our bodies. So sometimes people don’t want to grow baby seeds and sometimes people are too sick to grow baby seeds. And that I think doctors should be allowed to help people who don’t want to, to stop baby seeds from growing, but here they aren’t allowed to. And because they weren’t allowed to stop Savita’s baby seed from growing, even though her body wasn’t able to grow it, she died.

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Posted in Abortion, Education, Health, Reproduction, The family. Bookmark the permalink.

Trans Rights and Healthcare are on a Precipice

Posted on June 16, 2018 by feministire

This piece comes from an anonymous contributor, a comrade of the writers of Feminist Ire, speaking out at a crisis point in trans healthcare in Ireland from the perspective of a trans woman.

I’m currently writing with feelings of anger, sadness and frustration at two powerful elements within Irish society that seem intent on further damaging the health and well being as well as perpetuating the overwhelming stigmatisation of trans people in this country. When we peel back the surface and uncover the plight of Trans people this ultimately and all too often reveals itself in violence, disenfranchisement, poverty, rape, self harm and suicide. It’s often highlighted in discussion around trans topics, the terrible statistics of self harm and suicide when it comes to the trans community for example. To reference some headline figures a study by the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland in 2012 shows that 78% of trans people have had thoughts of suicide, 40% have attempted and 6% have attempted five or more times! Self harm is not much better with 44% of trans people reporting that they have self harmed at some stage in their lives with 6% actively currently self harming. Unfortunately this very plight of trans people which should be an impetus to drastically improve the standards of care for a vulnerable and suffering minority is often used as a stick to beat us with.

These heartbreaking statistics are a reflection of a wider societal issue, that of the systematic oppression of trans minorities where a binarist, cisnormative, patriarchal society violently attacks in both it’s messaging, actions and structures, every aspect of trans people’s public and private lives as we fight to exist openly and authentically and navigate within it. The statistics quoted above are a snapshot taken three years before marriage equality and legal gender recognition had passed and at an earlier stage in a sizemic cultural shift currently taking place on this island, which has seen a new generation of progressive and radicalised citizens and residents pushing through sweeping social reforms and resisting privatisation through grassroots activism in a country still dogged by it’s colonial and theocratic past. Indeed this aspect of Irish culture and the potential it envokes in shaping our society in the near future makes this Island a pretty good place to be trans comparatively, albeit coming from a very low base. The presence of a strong grassroots, intersectional and women led network of activists has helped to stave off much or the recindance of trans rights that can be seen happening within our two giant anglophile neighbours. To our left we have bathroom ‘debates’ and the dismantling of legal protections along with scores of murdered trans people, excused through panic defense. To our right we have the potential of a depathologised legal recognition for trans and intersex people being attacked, alongside numerous cases of trans women sent to their deaths in male prisons.

However despite this somewhat favourable environment, there remains two large and prescient threats to the progress of trans liberation in Ireland. Namely, a couple of chiefs based within one hospital in south Dublin who seem intent on limiting access to health-care and perpetuating an outmoded and dangerous conservative pathological ideology, discouraging people from transitioning where possible, refusing to listen to the increasingly angry and desperate voices of the trans community, refusing to implement international best practice when it comes to trans health care, criticizing us for demanding such health-care and proportioning partial blame on the healthcare demands of the trans community for the regrets of a small number of detransitioners all the while conflating their situation with the desperate mental health situation alluded to above. Thier prejucicial elitist practices are resultingly working to conserve the violent patriarchal transmysogonist aspects of a society that kills us and in order to do this these dinosaurs are allying themselves with traditional media to spread this destructive message and shore up their status as Ireland’s premier gatekeepers. This is a high risk strategy and very dangerous to the health and wellbeing of trans people, the same people they proport to care for.

The media narrative in Ireland in relation to trans people is currently being pulled in two destructive and harmful directions. On the one side there is an old school and elitist club, most prominent within the broadcast and ‘newspaper of record’ realms that projects a veneer of liberalism, but in reality paints over the cracks of a declining conservative, ignorant and voyeuristic mindset influenced by the ‘medical oddity’ genre of pseudo scientific transexual documentaries of the 90s to early 00s emanating from either side of the pond. The impact of this club’s influence can partially be evidenced in the cautious language reflected in the recent together for yes campaign which amongst other things erased the effect that the eighth ammendment had on trans and intersex people in much of its messaging in the penultimate weeks of the official referrendum campaign.

While many trans people who worked hard to secure a yes outcome and their grassroots allies were prepared to begrudgingly go along with this messaging to secure a victory by not actively speaking out, a hurt and resentment remains that has spilled out in potentially destructive ways. A statement from anonymous members of the trans community demanded an apology from together for yes literally hours after the results were declared. This resulted in an unintentional indirect attack on the grassroots, who are made up of pragmatic trans people and their allies and threw trans women and femmes to the TERFs. The downplaying of the intersection of trans and intersex people in relation to the 8th has also resulted in gendered language in the headings of the prospective legislation which, if not rectified could potentially leave trans and intersex people with uteruses still unable to access abortion healthcare in Ireland. Thankfully there seems a concensus around rectifying this situation but this should never have arisen in the first place.

On the other side there is a red top brigade that on the one hand is perfectly content to sensationalize, hypersexualize and dehumanise the trans experience to titillate and incense their diminishing white cis-hetero audience. They are in turn being pushed into even more dangerous territory by their sister publications in the UK that are largely owned by an increasingly centralised right wing conservative and billionaire class, who by co-opting the language of feminism and fueled by evangelicals are giving voice to their willing lackeys in the form of a loud minority of middle class TERFs who are ramping up their attacks on trans people. This tactic compliments their agenda of dividing people into competing groups and hierarchies to distract from intensifying inequality, debt and economic stagnation caused by their economic plunder. Although making inroads into online spaces where increasingly their once captive audiences have deserted to, their impact on these realms on the mindset of people living in Ireland remains limited. That being said it’s this cohort of nasties that have the potential to derail impending legislation that should increase the ease of legal transition for trans people in Ireland and regognise non binary and intersex identites. Hopefully the former cloak offered by the marriage equality results and resulting legislation while the original gender recognition bill was passed will again be offered by the success of the repeal campaign.

The results of this unholy alliance between the chiefs and the dieing media, aside from the problems stated above is that healthcare in Ireland for trans people is in a dangerous and delicate impass. The chiefs want to model the recent and welcome investment in trans healthcare in their own image, to preserve the status quo and bolster their own professions albeit with shorter waiting times. Trans people as individuals are a small disparate and oppressed minority with limited voice, resources and energy fighting for a depathologised and informed consent model that is on demand and without apology. We are at the mercy of the chiefs despite a favourable cultural environment, despite support from politicians, and even tacid support from the health service.

What we’ve currently been able to muster in terms of advocating for health care is a small and problematic campaigning group centered around inexperienced trans-masc indivituals who are currently on the outside of the health system. They speak out loudly and attempt mass protests for healthcare. They have uncovered the sinister ideology begind the masks of the chiefs but they tone police their own community members who wish to speak out at protests, disengage with non-binary ‘trouble makers’ online and sit in meetings with the likes of Joan Burton and celebrate it. Of special note however is the emergence of Radical Queers Resist, a broader queer alliance who came to light during the refferendum campaign by largely nullifying the effects of the most grotesque forced-birther group in the form of the ICBR. This group offers the potential of offering an effective avenue for the campaigning elements of the trans liberation movement going forward.

Meanwhile non profit organisations working largely within the system with limited clout, work desperately behind the scenes despite stretched resources and limited funding pools. They are, as the system dictates heavily funded by the very organisations they are advocating towards. They can not speak out for fear that the chiefs in a strop, stop treating half of the countrys trans patients within the health system overnight. The only solution is the mobilisation of the existing wider grassroots movement of allies. This has the potential to effect change in our favour but it must be built upon a greater understanding of our predicament and the sharing of experience and resources. This can be realised through the amplification of our voices through the correct use of it’s inherant privelege.

In the meantime waiting lists continue to lenghten causing massive mental strife. Trans people continue to be subjected to invasive and unnecessary psychological and psychiatric assessment based on outmoded and offensive criteria, being actively discouraged in their hormonal and medical transitions and twarted at every stage. Non-binary people have to lie and pretend not to exist in order to access the same treatment as their binary counterparts, access to counselling and non-patholigising forms of mental health care is sparse to non existant albeit linked with the wider defunding of mental health. Recieving hormone replacement therapy for already transitioned individuals from GPs on a parity with their cisgender counterperts is almost impossible. Autistic people and those with other and often linked mental health problems such as PTSD are not deemed to be ‘true transgender’, expensive treatments deemed cosmetic because they don’t conform to the male gaze of medical practitioners rather than seen as alleviating the distress of dysphoria remain out of reach and patients are forced to travel abroad for intensive operations with limited aftercare and financial support. The potential outcomes of this impasse will have a greater threat to the lives of trans people than the unfortunate decisions and regrets of a minority of detransitioners currently being used as false equivalencies to preserve the status of the chiefs.

Respect motherhood. Vote Yes.

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Wendy Lyon

Some of my best friends are mothers. I have to admit, I don’t envy them. I know they love their children, that they bring a lot of joy into their lives. I know if I had children I would feel that way too. But I also know that they had to give up a lot to become mothers, more than I would ever be happy to give up.

“Happy” is the wrong word, actually, because it seems that most of my friends are anything but happy about the price they’ve paid for motherhood. If anything, the ones who are co-parenting (at least with a man) are angrier about this than the single mams, because the fathers always promise more than they deliver. I listen as they share their frustration and resentment at how he still assumes the primary parenting and household duties to be hers; still feels entitled to aspects of his pre-parenthood life that she has long since resigned to the dustbin of her own past; expects praise and gratitude and a Dad of the Century award when he remembers to “help out”.

Added to this are the negative impacts that motherhood has had on her prospects for employment or promotion. The resentment she senses from female co-workers without children, who she suspects of seeing her reduced hours and frequent absences as a kind of special treatment. The barely concealed disdain from male co-workers, who she thinks see these things as evidence of lack of commitment to the job. Some of these male co-workers have children themselves, of course, but rarely have to prioritise their children over their work. That’s what their wives are for.

Then, too, there are the physical effects of childbirth [CN: obstetric trauma]. There’s a lot more of these than you probably know if you’ve never had children yourself, and as far as I can tell, none of them are good. Stretch marks, caesarean scars, vaginal laxity, hair loss, haemorrhagic periods, urinary incontinence – these are just the more common ones, the ones you can look forward to if you have a normal birth. If you’re one of the lucky ones. If you’re not, you could find yourself with a third or fourth degree perineal tear, pelvic organ prolapse, rectovaginal fistula, faecal incontinence, or Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction which, in particularly bad cases, leads to permanent reliance on mobility aids. Did you know spontaneous symphysiotomy is a thing? Neither did I, until I met a woman who had one.

If these injuries themselves are not lifelong (and many are), the psychological effects of them usually will be – and not just on the woman. They’ve destroyed marriages. They’ve also complicated mothers’ relationships with their children. One woman I know told me of her lifelong sense of guilt for not being able to bond with her baby properly – she was so injured by his birth that she couldn’t hold him. Other women speak of feeling some resentment towards the child themselves. They say this hesitantly, and often with enormous shame; aren’t they supposed to think “a healthy baby is all that matters”? Then they always feel the need to add the disclaimer that they love their child and don’t wish they hadn’t had it, they just wish things had gone differently. No doubt many of them mean this, but we’ll never know how many don’t. The mother who wishes she’d never had children is the one voice that is completely silent in the Repeal debate, just as she is everywhere else.

And then of course there are the women whom childbirth actually kills. Nowadays (though this wasn’t always the case) it’s usually medical negligence that’s to blame, but the outcome for the woman is the same. Ireland may be a relatively safe place to have a baby but that doesn’t change the fact that every year, a number of women die in our maternity hospitals – nor the fact that every woman who brings a pregnancy to term takes the risk of becoming one of those statistics.

This is what listening to women who are mothers has taught me: Motherhood is risky. Motherhood is difficult. Motherhood is sometimes life-threatening. It is always life-changing. Most of these changes are profound, though few are recognised as such, especially the bad ones.

When women have abortions for “social” reasons, when Yes campaigners call for legalisation without restriction as to reason, it is not, as the No campaign claims, because we take abortion “lightly”. It’s because we take motherhood seriously. We understand what it entails, and know that it should never be forced on someone who isn’t prepared to take it on. When No campaigners portray motherhood as no more than a minor inconvenience – or, worse yet, as a suitable penalty for “mis”behaviour – they belittle every woman who has ever sacrificed an important part of her life in order to have a child.

My own mother was already a mother when she had me. She knew it was no picnic. She held an MSc which wasn’t put to use again for many years after my siblings and I were born. She could have had a legal abortion in the place where we were living. Of course, I am grateful she didn’t. But I am also thankful for her that she had the choice. Done under duress, I can’t imagine how much harder her job would have been.

For all that Irish society purports to revere motherhood, the problem is we don’t really respect it. The myriad of ways that that needs to change are, for the most part, a subject for another blog post (I’ll just leave “proper remuneration” here for now). But we can take a big step very quickly by taking compulsory motherhood out of our Constitution – recognising it as too important a role to impose on the unready or unwilling.

Respect motherhood. Vote Repeal.

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Open letter to Judge McMahon on #repealthe8th

Posted on May 8, 2018 by feministire

A reply to this letter to the Irish Times last week. The IT has not published it, so we are happy to do so.

A Chara,

The hypocrisy of former Justice Bryan McMahon (‘The Eighth Amendment’, Letters, May 4th) in calling for the retention of the 8th Amendment cannot go unremarked. McMahon’s strong urging of a ‘No’ vote suggests that he has forgotten the recommendations of the working group on Direct Provision that he presided over just a few years ago that urged quite the opposite. The McMahon report “strongly urges” that arrangements be made to enable women in Direct Provision experiencing crisis pregnancies to access proper supports including provisions for travel abroad, presumably to access abortion services. The McMahon report is very clear on this. It recommends “that a review by the relevant organisations of services for persons in the system experiencing a crisis pregnancy be undertaken immediately with a view to a protocol being agreed to guide State agencies and NGOs supporting such persons. Particular attention should be paid to addressing the needs of the individual in the context of the legislative framework. Issues relating to travel documents, financial assistance, confidentiality, and access to information and support services should be addressed.”

The working group on Direct Provision and the McMahon report can be criticised on many fronts, but on this front – the need to address the terrible circumstances faced by women experiencing crisis pregnancies in Direct Provision – the report is on the right track. It is clear that horrors of the sort inflicted on Ms Y can only be addressed by removing the 8th Amendment from the constitution and making sure that ALL women and pregnant people can access the supports that they need in this country. As groups such as AIMS Ireland and MERJ – Migrant and Ethnic Minorities for Reproductive Justice have shown us through research and personal testimony, this extends beyond abortion access to the whole issue of reproductive services and health care for migrant and ethnic minority women in this state. The women who have been most affected by the 8th Amendment – the women who have died because of the 8th Amendment and the disregard for the lives of women and mothers that it has embedded in our constitution – are disproportionately migrant women. Migrant women make up 25% of pregnant people in Ireland, but account for a shocking 40% of maternal deaths. Former Justice McMahon himself is very much aware of these facts and of the terrible circumstances that can face migrant and asylum-seeking women and girls. It is to his great discredit that he has chosen to ignore this evidence and awareness in his cruel and hypocritical call for the retention of this most cruel and hypocritical aspect of this state’s constitution.

Yours, etc,

Anti-Racism Network Ireland

AIMS Ireland

Migrants and Ethnic-minorities for Reproductive Justice (MERJ)

Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI)

Let’s talk about sex

Posted on April 17, 2018 by feministire

Guest Post by Emma C, Belfast Feminist Network

If this was a fluffy opinion piece for a Sunday supplement, I might make some sideways jokes about 5 minutes of pleasure, or someone’s turn to go ‘downstairs’ as a way of making light about this intimate, messy, universal experience. It’s everywhere, in ads, all of our films, television, books, plays, music. We let our culture mull it over but with little nuance. Yet we never really seem to be able to actually talk about it. For real.

We are in the midst of a wave of reignited feminism and its predicted backlash. We see every day in articles from across the world, the endless tales of rape, violence, maternal deaths, lack of access to safe abortions, persecution of sex workers and LGBTQ+ people. I’m utterly convinced that our inability to properly address sex; what it is, what it’s for, how it feels, when it works, when it doesn’t, what its value is, has kept us behind this hurdle of inequality.

Locally, we have been dealing with our very own Northern Ireland flavoured version of this worldwide phenomenon. A recent rape trial, abuse scandals, the lack of respect for LGBT people sex workers and women, all becomes fomented in policy and has maintained barriers to healthcare, equality and respect.

Real-talking about sex has to begin. Real sex, not biology-book sex, not biblical sex, not porn sex, but real actual sex that happens between real actual humans. Most of us have an innate drive to seek sexual pleasure and some of us are more successful in that search than others. Sex is one the issues at the crux of gender and sexuality.

Imagine you are a 12-year-old girl walking home from school in your uniform, you have just begun to develop breasts. Your hormones are beginning to go haywire, meaning your emotions are everywhere and the world seems bigger and more confusing, even though adults are beginning to make more sense. Now imagine that as you are walking home, car horns beep at you regularly, when you turn to look to see who they are honking at and realise that it’s you, you see men the same age as your father and you blush a deep red as you’re not quite sure how to react. Then imagine that with every passing few months there are more comments in the street, from young men hanging around in groups, from waiters, from family friends, even from school teachers, about your slowly changing appearance.

This is the beginning of the onslaught. This unwelcome and unwarranted attention is never spoken about to the young people that experience it. This is when men, and the women, trans people and gay men that they objectify begin to learn about consent. We are being taught from a young age that it is okay to be publicly sexualised, by men; older men, younger men, men in positions of power, strangers and there is really nothing we can do about it.

Many of us will have seen the declarations from various pious lampposts around this wee country that, “ THE WAGES OF SIN ARE DEATH”, yet we know from our national stance on abortion, access to contraception, and sex work that actually if the so-called sin is a sexual one between a ‘straight’ man and another person, it’s the other person who has to bear the brunt of that particular exchange.

Consensual sex is categorically not a sin. Well, except if you are a woman (and trans person and gay man and sex worker). Then of course it is a sin. You are a slut, unlike the man, who will probably be a legend (to himself), we all know this, we understand this paradox and yet we all maintain it, despite the harm it causes. Street harassment is the thin end of the wedge of our rape culture. RAPE CULTURE, a description that so many baulk at, yet we live in a society where somehow a woman should automatically be embarrassed about having a threesome and a man can be glorified amongst his mates. According to solicitors, the shame of a threesome could lead a young woman to take a lengthy and unnecessary court case against someone to save face… whereas leaving someone crying hysterically and bleeding internally after a sexual encounter is perfectly acceptable. A top tip for any man planning a threesome: if someone starts bleeding, best to call it a day, at the very least you aren’t doing it right and at the worst you might be raping someone.
We know that what a person wears, drinks, eats, how they get home, and what previous sexual history they have should have absolutely zero to do with whether or not they get raped, yet on and on we see victim blaming from legal experts, from prurient press, from anyone quick to judge with access to a social media account.

Expecting everyone who is not a straight cis man to pay for the sin of sex is why abortion is such a controversial topic as well. It’s got little to do with little cute babies and everything to do with women and pregnant people facing the consequences. “She should have kept her legs shut” “She should have to take responsibility for her mistake” “She should have thought about that before whoring around” – all things that are frequently said in some shape or form – it’s abortion’s own form of blaming, with a human to look after for the rest of your life as punishment. This is despite the overwhelming majority of single parents being women, it’s despite the overwhelming majority of contraception and birth control being aimed at women and it’s despite the fact that sexual assault and rape are so common that they are endemic, and yet we don’t even get off the hook for that one, as apparently our bodies don’t even deserve freedom from someone else’s crime (if they are a man).

Whenever the onslaught of sexualisation begins, it teaches us – women, queer and trans folk, that our boundaries are unimportant. It undermines our trust as to everyone’s intentions, and most importantly it undermines our ability to trust our own instinct. Setting boundaries is an important life skill, yet attempts to develop this skill are thwarted from the start if we can’t even tell strangers on the street not to comment on the shape of our ‘tits’ when we are still children.

Forgotten in all of this is that sex is supposed to be pleasurable, people shouldn’t get internal lacerations from consensual sex, unless it’s something they have specifically requested. Our concept of virginity is outdated as well, why is the only important thing when a penis enters a vagina? There are so many more ways of having sex, and not just for queer people. Sex is better when it is about reciprocal pleasure, you need to be able to say to the person that you’re having sex with, ‘yes that’s working or no that’s not working, can you do it more like this?’ However we are having sex in a society that doesn’t allow space for conversations about that.

We can be on the BBC talking about murderers, about complicated political ideas, about tragedies faced by families dealing with a variety of crises, but we are unable to talk about sex openly. We can’t address it, we are too scundered, even though that embarrassment creates a void that leads to our young people being educated by the internet; by the most popular types of porn which debase women, people of colour and trans people.

Popular porn is what we are offering to our culture instead of real conversations about pleasure. Young people are divided by gender for sex education, which is largely provided for by religious organisations. It’s no coincidence that the same organisations that are against contraception and abortions, are against LGBT people and sex before marriage.

If we let these people misinform our children, our offspring will look somewhere else instead, for something that more closely reflects the real lives they live than the prim fantasies that abstinence-only, anti LGBT sex education provides.

Not only have we no adequate ways to punish and re-educate young men with monstrous ideas about what women are (less than human receptacles for sperm and babies) but we are enabling them from children to become this way.

If we want our future to be safer and happier for the next generations, then we have to make actual changes to our sex education. We have to stigmatise talking about women and others as less than human and not stigmatise women having sex. We have to teach people that there is no pleasure without consent and that consent is the lowest bar. We have to be prepared to call out ‘banter’ if it demeans anyone because of the type of sex they have. We have to stand up to the tiny minority of bigoted bullies that get their voices amplified too often.

Everyone knows someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted, everyone knows someone who has had an abortion or crisis pregnancy, we just need to learn to put on our grown-up pants and talk about these things properly and with respect before any more generations are harmed by our wilful negligence.

– Emma C

Belfast Feminist Network

On pregnant women and disabled children, in a society that cares for neither

Posted on January 30, 2018 by Wendy Lyon

For as long as I can remember, women have been warned to adjust our behaviour – before and during pregnancy (as if there was no third option) – to keep us from having disabled children. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. Don’t get pregnant after 40. Take folic acid. The need to prevent the birth of disabled children has become such a societal imperative that women have found themselves harassed for having a glass of wine while pregnant, refused service, criminalised, and even sterilised to achieve this goal. The message that underlies all this is clearly one of the undesirability of disability (as well, of course, of it being the woman’s fault).

Obviously there’s a difference between trying to prevent disability in an otherwise healthy pregnancy, and terminating the pregnancy you actually have because of a disability. But that difference isn’t captured by many of the arguments we’re hearing from the anti-repeal side, which talk about birth rates for children with Down Syndrome in Iceland and solemnly warn about a future with no disabled children, in language appropriating the Holocaust. Their stats about Iceland are wrong, as we know, but what if they were right – and what if the reason they were right was not because of high abortion rates where DS was detected, but because of health or lifestyle changes that helped diminish the incidence of DS pregnancies in the first place? Would they be out protesting folic acid suppliers for their role in the genocide of disabled children?

Of course they wouldn’t, and this most of all is what bothers me about the use of children with Down Syndrome in anti-abortion campaigns. It’s a sort of fetishisation of disability, something they would otherwise find deeply undesirable, something they would actually put women in prison to prevent. I’m aware of course that people with disabilities have their own – non-homogeneous – views about their disabilities (no doubt deeply influenced by the barriers society places in front of them, something anti-choicers show little concern about) but that’s not the place where the anti-repeal leaders are coming from. Especially when you know they’d be the first to criticise women for not doing pregnancy right.

Damned if we do have disabled children, damned if we don’t. Almost as if it’s not really about the children at all.

With thanks to Danielle and Beth

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Pregnant Child Detained in Mental Institution For Asking For An Abortion

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Taryn de Vere

To access a life saving abortion in Ireland requires 3 medical professionals (two psychiatrists and one obstetrician) to agree that the woman is at risk of taking her own life. As the recent case of a young girl shows it only takes one psychiatrist however to get sectioned for wanting an abortion in Ireland.

The girl was legally classed as a child and her identity has understandably been withheld so we know nothing more about her other than that she had an unwanted pregnancy and that when she sought an abortion from her healthcare professionals she was of the understanding that she was being taken to Dublin for the procedure. However unbeknownst to her the consultant psychiatrist had given evidence at a hearing to detain her under the Mental Health Act.

“The consultant psychiatrist was of the opinion that while the child was at risk of self harm and suicide as a result of the pregnancy, this could be managed by treatment and that termination of the pregnancy was not the solution for all of the child’s problems at that stage.”

How frightening it must have been for her to find herself in a mental hospital after travelling to Dublin expecting an abortion. We are told it was “days” later that another hearing was held that resulted in her discharge from the mental hospital. During this time her court-appointed guardian ad litem (GAL) had employed another consultant psychiatrist to access her and on the basis of their evidence the girl was released from the institution. She spent unnecessary “days” in a mental institution for the “crime” of nothing more than wanting an abortion.

I’ve heard numerous reports of suicidal people trying to access mental health units in Irish hospitals who have been sent away. In future I’ll suggest to those of them who are capable of getting pregnant to say they’re pregnant and want an abortion, as that seems to be a sure way to get sectioned.

This case raises a number of questions. How is it that it only took one psychiatrist to have the girl sectioned? Why was the PLDP act not enacted for this pregnant, suicidal child? How can the public be assured that the personal beliefs of medical professionals won’t interfere with them being able to access the healthcare they need? Did Government Ministers know of the case at the time?

Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) spokesperson Linda Kavanagh said:

“Looking at the report, it’s hard not to think that the psychiatrist in this case essentially used the Mental Health Act as a tool to force a child into continuing an unwanted pregnancy because of their own personal beliefs. It is clear we need some process which ensures medical professionals with such conscientious objections cannot block timely health care in critical cases.”

This is the latest case in a long line of women and girls who have been failed by the state. Ms X was another suicidal child prevented from accessing an abortion in 1992 and Ms Y a teenage rape victim likewise led to believe she would be given an abortion and instead detained against her will. Ireland has a disgraceful history stretching back to the Magdalene Laundries of locking up pregnant women.

The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act is supposed to “protect” women who are at risk of taking their own lives, not used as a tool to lock women who want abortions up.

The Irish Government are allowing this human rights abuse to happen on their watch, leaving a trail of abused and sometimes dead women, girls and children behind them.

Rally to Repeal is on Saturday 17th in Dublin. If you can’t go please contact your local T.Ds and ask them to urgently implement the findings of the Citizens Assembly.

You can sign an UPLIFT petition here:https://action.uplift.ie/campaigns/187

*I’d like to acknowledge the work of the Child Law Project. We would know nothing of this case if it wasn’t for their work. Since 2012 they have been able to report to the public on child care proceedings in the courts, they aim to report on 10% of cases.

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Posted in Abortion, Equality, feminism, gender, Health, Politics, Reproduction, Violence against women and tagged abortion, Abortion in the Republic of Ireland, abortion rights, Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland, Ireland, mental health in ireland, politics, reproductive rights. Bookmark the permalink.

Ireland: Domestic Abusers Paradise

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Taryn de Vere

The following is a not-at-all comprehensive list of things that are not considered a crime in Ireland (if the person doing them to you is your partner or ex partner):

Refusing to get you medical attention when you need it
Deliberately embarking on a campaign of brainwashing to break you down and erode your self worth
Leaving you sick without food or water for more than 24 hours
Belittling and mocking you for your health issues
Stopping you from seeing your friends and/or family
Hacking into your accounts and spying on you
Trying to turn your children against you
Extorting money from you by coercion
Coming into your house without your permission
Going through your belongings
Leaving photographs of themselves in your bed
Sending abusive texts or emails
Using children to hurt/control you (by not attending to their needs when in their care, refusing to sign permission slips/passport applications/H.S.E forms etc)
Spreading malicious lies about you
Reading your texts and emails
Lurking round your property and looking through your back windows in the morning
Using jointly owned assets (property etc) as a means to control you
Not allowing you any money or taking all the money without your knowledge or permission
Sabotaging your contraception
Not allowing you to have an abortion if you want one
Neglecting the children when they are in his care
Not allowing you any time to yourself
Not allowing you to work
Making you keep a diary of what you do every minute of the day
Using their financial means and your lack of to control you
Deliberatley stripping you of your sense of identity
Threatening to take your children off you
Threatening to harm your children and or pets
Threatening to kill themselves in an effort to control you

All of the above examples I’ve taken from my own experience and those of the many women* I’ve supported after leaving abusive relationships. Many of these examples were cited in dealings with domestic abuse services and Gardai and the victim was told they had no case against the abuser. They are just some of the techniques used by abusive people to emotionally abuse others. I call it psychological torture, a brainwashing that happens over time that slowly but surely erodes the sense of self. This connection to the man’s needs creates a binding dynamic that makes it extra difficult for women to leave. Their victim’s sense of self is so eroded and they are so brainwashed into putting him first that even after leaving the most awful of relationships they are still thinking of and worried about the ‘poor’ man they’ve left. A lot of the work I do is helping women to reclaim their sense of self and to learn to put themselves and their needs first.

If you are a victim who has suffered emotional abuse constituting any of the above list (or other emotionally abusive actions), there are a few countries in the world that consider that treatment of you a crime. The U.K, France and Canada all consider emotional abuse to be a crime, as does the the U.N and domestic abuse service providers who work with abused women. Given the long term affects on the victim are the same regardless of the type of abuse perpetrated, why is it that most countries (including Ireland) only recognise the physical body as capable of being ‘abused’?

According to a U.N report on violence against women,

“Forty-three per cent of women in the 28 European Union Member States have experienced some form of psychological violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.”

43%. That is nearly half the female population of Europe that has been a victim of a type of abuse that is considered a criminal act in several first world countries and that is every bit as harmful to the victim as physical violence.

In Ireland, domestic abuse is not even seen as a crime, as Jane Ruffino points out in her excellent piece on the subject. A woman in Ireland whose partner or ex partner is doing any of the things on the list above has no legal recourse to get him to stop. Yet the list above contains actions that are considered warning signs if you are an expert in domestic abuse. And as we know, domestic abuse often ends only when the woman is dead.

Data on domestic abuse is not even collected in Ireland. Perhaps the Irish government thinks it can put it’s head in the sand as to the scale of the problem. That Gardai were grossly under reporting domestic abuse figures came to light when the Northern Irish Police released their report detailing more than 29,000 domestic abuse incidents. When this figure was compared with 3678 incidents reported by Gardai the same year people started to question the validity of the Irish figures. Since Ireland has nearly 3 times the population of Northern Ireland our figures should’ve looked more like 87,000. But then I suppose figures like that might require some kind of action on behalf of the Irish government.

According to the U.N less than 10% of women report physical, emotional or sexual crimes against them to the Police. If we are to assume that the Irish figures should be more like 87,000 and that that is representative of the 10% who report, we would be looking at 783,000 women in Ireland currently or previously being a victim of abuse (excluding child abuse). That roughly equals one sixth of the Irish population. Add that to the one in four who have been abused as a child and you have a country with a massive abuse problem. A country that doesn’t record domestic abuse figures and has a horrific history of covering up (and enabling even) child abuse.

As the government in Ireland seems disinterested in knowing how many of it’s citizens have been abused, perhaps some monetary figures would incentivise them to care. The link between metal health and trauma has been widely reported on, and the cost of mental health problems to the Irish economy is 3 billion a year. While some mental health problems are physiological, research shows that a lot of mental health problems stem from trauma. There are potentially 783,000 women in Ireland who have or are currently a victim of domestic abuse (excluding child abuse statistics). Some of these women have children who have also been exposed to if not abuse itself then the aftermath of experiencing abuse. These women have friends, family and work colleagues who will similarly be exposed and perhaps affected. That is a lot of potential mental health issues.

If we cared about abuse (if we cared about women) we might know what the actual figure of the economic cost of domestic abuse is. I’m not an economist, so I can only talk about the human cost. The human cost of living in a country that doesn’t view someone psychologically torturing you, denying you healthcare, tricking you into getting pregnant, threatening you, stalking you, lying about you or using your children against you as a crime worth prosecuting. A country that doesn’t even bother to collect data about the abuse you are receiving. And I have to ask, what kind of country accepts this behaviour as socially and legally justifiable?

NOTE ON ACTIONS: You can write to, phone or email your TD about the Domestic Violence Bill and ask for:

Domestic abuse to be made a criminal act.
Data to be collected by the Gardai on domestic abuse.
Emotional abuse to be included as a crime.
The name to be changed to ‘Domestic Abuse’ to encompass all types of abuse, including those that aren’t physical.

*I’m speaking of women in this piece as they are the most affected by domestic abuse and I have only worked with women survivors, however men can of course be victims of abuse as well.

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Posted in Dodgy stats, Domestic Abuse, Equality, feminism, gender, Harm reduction, Health, Politics, The family, Violence against women and tagged Domestic Abuse, domestic violence, feminism, human rights, Ireland, violence against women, women. Bookmark the permalink.

How to have an abortion when you’re in Ireland

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Stephanie Lord

(A Rough Guide to Ireland – Part 1)

So you’re pregnant and you don’t want to be. What next? First things first – commiserations on finding yourself in this situation. It’s shit and it might get a bit worse before it gets better, but there are people out there who are rooting for you and hopefully you find the information in here a little bit useful. This is basically a step by step guide to getting through this situation.

positive test

Are you definitely definitely definitely pregnant?

Take a test. You can buy them in every pharmacy and they cost between €10/€20. Sometimes they sell them really cheap in Dealz and sometimes other pound shops for around €1.50/€2. If you’re embarrassed about buying it or worried someone might see you, consider asking a trusted friend to go and buy it for you. If you’re worried about what the shop assistant might think, just try and look excited. The chances are the sales assistant is selling these every day and will not pay any heed to you anyway. If you’re not sure about the home test you took, the IFPA carry out testing for €20 but it’s free if you have a medical card. Cura and Sexual Health Centre in Cork offer free pregnancy testing. Having an early scan so you can figure out how far along you are might be useful if you aren’t sure. You can get a free scan at FemPlus in Dublin and there are places around the country offering scans at a variety of locations with an average cost of around €100. The Abortion Support Network can tell you where the best place to go for a scan is. A scan will also confirm that the pregnancy isn’t ectopic. If you can’t get to a scan or afford a scan the most important thing when determining how far along you are is that you need to be counting from the first day of your last menstrual period, not from when you had sex.

Marie Stopes Reproductive Choices will provide you with a consultation and a scan but where they will charge €110 (or €90 for a phone consultation). It’s important to note that Marie Stopes’ clinics in Britain absolutely will not perform a procedure if you do not have the correct payment for it.

Decide if counselling is for you

Perhaps you’ve made a decision not to continue your pregnancy, or maybe you feel you want to chat confidentially about that decision with someone else. Here are a list of clinics that are legit crisis pregnancy clinics. The IFPA section about their counselling service has some useful links and shows the locations where they provide services around Ireland. When you go to these counselling services in those links, the counsellor is legally obliged to tell you about your options including parenting and adoption. Remember, whether or not you continue your pregnancy is your choice, and you need to do what’s right for you.

Be aware that there are other unethical “crisis pregnancy” services out there that are designed not to assist women but to push their anti-choice agenda.

You might not want to go to counselling, but bear in mind that it’s free and if you go to counselling with either Irish/ Northern Irish FPA, Well Woman, Femplus Clinics, One Family, Cork Sexual Health or here2help, and subsequently attend BPAS for a termination, you won’t have to pay the €80/€90 counselling fee that BPAS charge. A letter from the IFPA to say you attended counselling will waive the counselling fee charged at *any* English clinic.

There are lots of women who make their decision the second they find out they’re pregnant. There are lots who take some time to decide on their own. There are others who go to counselling. Do what works for you – but as soon as you make your decision to have an abortion, start the ball rolling on making the appointment.

So you’ve made a decision to have an abortion, what now?

How you proceed in accessing an abortion from here on, really depends on how much access to money you have. If you have money you can travel overseas to access termination services, and I’ll go into the logistics of this later. If you don’t have money to travel, there are still options.

The Abortion Support Network are an organisation that offer practical, non-judgemental information and advice, financial help and, when needed, accommodation in volunteer homes. They provide guidance on what is the cheapest way for you to have your abortion, and which clinics will be the best choice for you. Ring them before you make any appointment and travel plans. If it is a particularly busy time of year for UK clinics it may be cheaper and quicker for you to travel to the Netherlands or Brussels for your treatment (although you will definitely need a passport to travel there from Ireland). ASN has a network of volunteers in UK cities that will provide accommodation and meals for those who need or want to stay overnight – most women are able to travel in and out in one day.

The Abortion Pill

Abortion is illegal in almost all cases here so many women who don’t have the money to travel (or it simply is not an option for them because of their immigration status or relationship status or age or childcare arrangements) will illegally order the abortion pill from Women Help Women. The abortion pill is a safe medicine.

Some women in the 26 Counties have found that when they ordered this online that it was confiscated by Customs but to our knowledge, nobody has been prosecuted for attempting to receive pills online. In the 6 Counties however, there have been prosecutions for attempting to procure a miscarriage (there are criminal penalties for this in both jurisdictions). There are difficulties in ordering online, but it isn’t impossible. The medication is usually supplied in exchange for an €80 donation. Need Abortion Ireland help women access medications from Women Help Women.

Women on Web are another organisation that can sometimes deliver to Ireland. The organisation ROSA have twice partnered with Women on Web to drive a bus around Ireland to do consultations for pills and then the pills will be posted to you a few days later. This is worth noting if you’re using resources to travel to a place where the bus is going to be because they will take around 3 days to get them to you. It may be quicker to just order them online in many cases as Women Help Women take around 5 days delivery. Both Women Help Women and Women on Web are reputable providers of early medical abortion pill. However we understand that Women Help Women is faster to respond to client emails. There is another reputable provider of pills, called Safe2Choose, but they are not currently sending pills to the Republic of Ireland.

Both Women Help Women and Women on Web will ask you for a Northern Irish address in addition to your home address, or the address of the place you will be receiving the pills. If you do not have a friend in Northern Ireland, fill out the medical consultation and WHW or WOW will follow up with you.

Please do not attempt an abortion with any other remedy, herbal or otherwise, as you could inflict serious injury on yourself. While Women on Web and Women Help Women are trusted providers of the abortion pill, there is always a risk when buying medicine online when it comes from a source that isn’t trusted.

A safe place to have your abortion

Once you’ve got your pills, you’ll need a safe space to take them. Most people will do that at home but for some that won’t be an option so they might go to a trusted friend’s house. Need Abortion Ireland’s site provides useful advice and self-care tips for when you’re having your abortion. They also provide care packages and a text message support service 089 490 2517 available 6pm – 9pm, 7 days a week. You can email them at info@needabortionireland.org The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) also provide a hotline for those living in Ireland with medical questions/concerns about medical abortion pills. BPAS can be reached at 1800 910 049 (ROI) and 0800 077 6049 (NI). Here are some tips on what to do if you think you’re in an emergency medical situation.

Increasingly, there appears to be a clampdown in the North on women taking the abortion pill, and a tendency towards prosecutions. Two prosecutions have been brought because someone touted on their housemate, and another two were reported by doctors. You are legally allowed to travel (if your immigration status is regularised) so telling your doctor you’re pregnant, or having them perform a pregnancy test should not be an issue. You do not have to tell them that you intend to have an abortion.

The Money

Figuring out how to pay for it, whether it’s the €80 donation for Women Help Women or €450 to a clinic and another €300 for flights, can be the most traumatic aspect of this experience for many women. If you are purchasing pills from Women Help Women or Women on Web and do not have the full requested donation, they may be willing to accept a smaller donation amount. If you’re later on in the pregnancy, or decide to travel to England, your procedure will cost more. The Abortion Support Network can help you with this but you may not wish to ask for that assistance. If you’re low on phone credit, you can request a call-back from the abortion clinics. Here is a list of clinics.

Many women take loans from their local Credit Union to fund their abortion. Generally speaking, they will let you borrow twice what you have in savings if a guarantor will sign for it. If you don’t have someone who can act as guarantor, you may need to get a student loan in a bank, or check if you can activate an overdraft facility on your account. Each credit union has different rules so it’s best to ask the branch you’re a member of. If you are in receipt of a social welfare payment you might be eligible to join and borrow from your local credit union through the Personal Microfinance Scheme. This was a government scheme introduced to try and stop people going to illegal money lenders. Try to avoid going to the illegal moneylenders at all costs. You could also go to the Community Welfare Officer to ask for an emergency payment. Keep in mind though that you will need to provide a reason why you need this payment, and if you say it is for a washing machine there is a chance you will need to either provide proof you purchased a washing machine or an inspector may call to check your purchase. You could take a chance and tell the CWO why you need the payment as they have a wide range of discretion but you do run the risk of going to a CWO who is antichoice and won’t give you the payment.

Other women have sold items on ebay to fund their terminations, or borrowed smaller amounts from various siblings or friends. You might have some coins in an old jar that you can put towards it. Maybe you have a fiver in an old coat. Or a €20 left in an old Post Office account. Withdraw it. Depending on your circumstances and ability to travel, you could be looking at paying anything between €450 and €2,500 to travel overseas to have a termination. Remember that the Abortion Support Network can give advice on the least expensive way to arrange your abortion and travel in addition to providing financial assistance to those who can’t afford to travel.

The medical abortion (abortion pill) costs less if you’re ordering it online, around €80, but you can only do this up to 10 weeks gestation. Surgical abortions will cost more but it will be cheaper if you do it without anaesthetic. Abortion is available in Britain on a broad range of grounds up until 24 weeks gestation. After 24 weeks, abortion is only permitted in Britain to save a woman’s life or prevent serious permanent harm to her physical and mental health; or where a child is likely to be born with a serious physical or mental disability. The later the gestation, the more expensive the procedure. Irish women usually have later abortions because it takes them longer to get the money together to travel.

If you’re reading this and not pregnant, start putting money away in a rainy day fund now. Open a credit union account if you can.

bpas

BPAS price list for those travelling from Ireland – April 2017

plane

Travelling for your abortion

Skyscanner is useful for checking for the cheapest flights. Make sure you liaise with your clinic first so that they have an appointment time available to suit you and with ASN beforehand if you’re getting financial assistance. If you have any serious medical conditions or are later along or have a particularly high BMI, that clinic may not be able to perform the exact procedure and may need you to go to a different clinic, so make sure you’re giving them accurate information so that you can have your procedure the day you travel. Also, book your appointment before your flights because it will be easier for them to adjust your appointment time if necessary than it will be for you to change your flights if needed.

If you fly over, you will need a passport for Ryanair so budget for that. Aer Lingus will take a number of different photo id’s including a work id with your photo on, a student id or a social welfare id if you’re travelling to Britain. If you can’t get an appointment in the UK and are travelling with Aer Lingus or another airline to somewhere else in Europe, you will need a passport. You can apply for a passport here and it costs €80.

Once you get there, if you’re travelling to a BPAS clinic, they have an excellent series of PDFs that show you the transport links to clinics from the airport nearest you. NUPAS also have a free courtesy taxi service. If you’re travelling to a Marie Stopes clinic, they have a free taxi pick up service for their clients coming from Ireland. When you make your appointment, the clinic will give you directions on how to get there via public transport anyway.

Outside the clinic

When you get to the clinic, there may be protesters outside. Protesters tend to stay at larger clinics but they aren’t allowed on premises so if there’s a car park outside and you arrive by taxi, you won’t have to deal with that. This can be distressing for women but this link provides useful information. Just remember, you aren’t doing anything wrong. Don’t engage with them. Just keep walking. If you’re very concerned about it, call the clinic and explain this to them and someone will escort you in.

Inside the abortion clinic

When you get inside, don’t be alarmed by the fact there are other Irish women there. They are all there for the same reason as you. You will never see them again.

Information on the abortion treatment and procedures is available here.

The length of time you’ll be at the clinic depends on the type of procedure you’re having but it will be anything from 3 hours to an overnight stay. For example, if you’re having a surgical abortion up to 14 weeks it takes around 15 minutes with an hour of recovery time. If you’re having the abortion pill and you’re under 9 weeks you can take both tablets in one go, but over 9 weeks and you’ll have to take one tablet and then come back in 1-3 days (this is why having an accurate knowledge of gestation is so important), and of course staying longer will increase the cost of your stay in Britain. 10-14 women travel to Britain every day from Ireland for abortions and most of these go over and back on the same day.

Consider when you’re paying if you want to do it by cash or debit card. Most clinics won’t have the name of the clinic show up on the card but you can check with them in advance in case you’re concerned. Depending on the exchange rate that day, it could be cheaper for you to pay in cash with sterling.

If you need accommodation, the clinic you attend can probably send a list of reasonably priced B&Bs if you ask them. If you can’t afford accommodation, contact Abortion Support Network. Abortion Support Network do not provide accommodation for women having Early Medical Abortions.

If you need to account for being away for a day or two, you can say you were just going on holiday or that you had a job interview. Try to keep things simple. Remember that there is no shame in your abortion, you have done nothing wrong – regardless of whether you choose to tell people or not. If you would usually bring your Aunty Pat a fridge magnet from your holiday, and you’ve told her you’ve gone on holiday, try and do the same this time.

Travelling for abortion after 24 weeks

If you need an abortion after 24 weeks because of a serious foetal condition, you may have to go to a specialist clinic for this. There are a few hospitals England that will provide the necessary treatment but you may have to wait a few weeks for an appointment. Depending on the stage of pregnancy and your medical requirements, the procedure may differ so it is best to speak directly to the hospital about the costs. In some late term abortions, the procedure is that the foetal heart is stopped and then the foetus is subsequently delivered. What some women have found in Ireland is that it costs around €1,500 for the first part and another €1,500 for the delivery so they opt to travel the first part done in Britain, and then return home to deliver the foetus in an Irish hospital where they have the support of their family. This also removes the cost of transporting foetal remains home to Ireland for burial. Some women simply prefer this option. Please do not be alarmed by these figures. Liverpool Women’s charges around £1634 for the whole procedure including the stay at hospital with your partner and it really depends on your particular needs.

If your pregnancy has been diagnosed with a fatal foetal anomaly, you are not alone. You can contact AnteNatal Results and Choices (ARC), a UK charity helping people understand their diagnosis and providing information. You can also contact Termination For Medical Reasons, a group in the Republic of Ireland made of women and couples who have made the trip to England to terminate pregnancies for medical reasons. They have a support group called Leanbh Mo Chroi – 086 3745474 or leanbhmochroi@gmail.com.

If you are in care….

If you are in residential or foster care, you have the right to travel to access abortion services. Contact your social worker to make these arrangements for you. Be aware, that in many cases where young people in care have attempted to seek abortions overseas, they have had to go through psychiatric assessments with the HSE and there have been court hearings.

If you need a visa to travel…..

If you are an asylum seeker, there is provision for you to get travel documents to access abortion overseas but it is an arduous process. You solicitor can also seek funds from the HSE via court order to assist you with the cost of travelling. You can contact the IFPA for more information on getting the assistance to travel from the HSE. As outlined here, you will need two visas, one to leave Ireland and one to make sure you get back in. If English is not your first language, let them know when you are booking your appointment, in many cases, a translator can be provided.

If you are a migrant or a refugee the best places to go if you need a visa to travel are:

MRCI Migrants Rights Centre Ireland http://www.mrci.ie (01) 889 7570

IRC Irish Refugee Council www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie (01) 764 5854

The MRCI and IRC share a Dublin office.

Depending on what country you are from, it may be easier for you to get a visa for The Netherlands or Belgium.

A legal abortion in Ireland?

If there is a real and substantial risk to your life, including a risk of suicide, you may be entitled to an abortion in Ireland. This is not guaranteed. In the Ms. Y case, the young woman was suicidal but was ultimately coerced under threat of legal action to undergo a c-section at 24 weeks despite being deemed suicidal. We are aware of another case where a suicidal woman was granted an abortion though, but there are too few cases at the moment to predict how applications will be treated. If there is a risk to your life because you are suicidal as a result of your pregnancy and want to seek treatment in Ireland, speak to your GP. It may be best to make alternative plans to travel simultaneously in case your request for a termination is denied. If you are suicidal, there is a list of contacts that may be of assistance to you here.

After your abortion

When you return, you should attend for a post-abortion check up with your GP or with the IFPA or a Well Woman Clinic. Post-abortion check-ups are free as they are state funded. Post-abortion counselling is also free. A list of clinics where you can access non-judgmental counselling is here. From a doctor’s point of view, a medical abortion (an abortion using the pill) is indistinguishable from a miscarriage. You don’t have to tell your doctor about it, but there’s some useful information here and here that may help you make that decision. Be aware that if you tell your doctor you took the abortion pill illegally in Ireland, there is a chance they may report you to the authorities. Your doctor is not legally obliged to report you in the South, but doctors are legally obliged to report you in the north. It may be worthwhile travelling to access post-abortion care from a provider you know will not report you.

Take it easy. Consider your future contraceptive needs. Talk to a friend or a professional if you feel you need to but don’t feel you have to. It can be a big emotional deal even when you’re 100% confident you made the right decision. So most of all, be kind to yourself.

takecare

Budgeting for your abortion overseas – A Feminist Ire Cut Out & Keep Guide

	Cost
Pregnancy tests	€
GP Visit	€
Phone credit for making calls to clinic / booking flights	€
Passport or ID Cost	€
Cost of travel documents or solicitor consultations to get them	€
Dating scan (optional)	€
Getting to ferry or airport (bus or taxi fare) or alternatively, airport parking plus petrol costs	€
Plane or ferry ticket cost	€
Plane or ferry cost for partner or friend accompanying	€
Phone credit for journey	€
Cost of printing documents (boarding pass, utility bill etc).	€
Accommodation	€
Fee for Abortion Treatment	€
Cost of Contraception	€
Food	€
Painkillers	€
Sanitary towels	€
Travel from clinic to airport	€
Travel from airport to home	€
Childcare fees	€
Miscellaneous	€
TOTAL	€

@stephie08

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Posted in Abortion, feminism, gender, Harm reduction, Health, rough guide to Ireland and tagged abortion, Abortion in the Republic of Ireland, health, human rights, Ireland, women. Bookmark the permalink.

I am not a nun, I am a midwife: maternity care in a “modern” Ireland

Posted on April 22, 2017 by feministire

The author of this guest post wishes to remain anonymous.

I attended a protest at the Department of Health yesterday to highlight people’s outrage at the handing over of the new National Maternity Hospital site to the religious order of the Sisters of Charity. I went as a member of Midwives for Choice, and I expected to help hold the banner and maybe video our spokesperson speaking. As it happened she could not, fearful as she was of her job by speaking out against St Vincent’s Hospital Group. So it ended up that I had a microphone and a megaphone pointed in my direction. My reaction? I froze. My voice is an inside my head voice, for the most part; I can’t even speak up in small group conversations mostly. So for anyone who wanted to know why there were midwives behind a banner, here are my thoughts.

I’m already scared that I’m a nun. All the older nurses and midwives in our hospitals were trained by nuns and they tell of the iron fist, regimented care and much else. Sometimes with respect and awe, sometimes fear, sometimes relief that they are all but gone.

The church’s legacy is strong within our healthcare system. Many if not most hospitals in the state have some church connection (religious members on boards, etc). Yet the history of church-run institutions in this country reads like a horror story, from the Magdalene Laundries to the institutional schools. Say it slowly with me: the institutions of the Catholic Church are inherently misogynistic. Women’s bodies will always suffer under them. They are beyond redemption.

Finally, this is the generation where the church’s abuses are being exposed. We are sickened as a nation to our very core about the Tuam babies, symphysiotomies, Magdalene Laundries, the abuse of our children by priests and nuns. Finally we should have hope that our society will stand up and say no more, that we can extricate our institutions from the grasp of the religious. It will be a slow but worthwhile process. When we can get the church out of our government, our laws, our schools, our healthcare systems, our bodies, maybe finally we can have a humane secular society.

That’s what most of us were thinking, surely, in the wake of the Tuam babies case? Please save us from the church? Then what the hell is this move? It’s as Irish a decision as getting your kid baptised to have a family get-together… and maybe to get into the local school. Cop on, Ireland. Stop being so short-sighted, so disingenuous. If we know something is wrong – and by God we know the Sisters of Charity have done wrong – then let’s stand up against it.

As a midwife, my role in supporting women to make informed decisions around their care in pregnancy and childbirth is already curtailed by the patriarchal, over-medicalised, over-litigious, under-staffed, no-continuity, factory-model, fire-fighting maternity system in place here. But at least women in Ireland are starting to take back power, to demand evidence-based care and proper time to birth. Even if this is something that our systems literally cannot provide at present, at least there is an awareness that what we have now is not good enough.

It feels like a change, this last 10 years: women are coming together; midwives are coming together; there is a politicisation, a will to change, even if it can’t quite find traction within our systems yet. There is a recognition that the 8th Amendment is a barrier to proper maternity care; where the fetus and the woman have equal rights within our constitution, any perceived risk to the well-being of a fetus overrides even real and substantial risks to a woman’s health and well-being. Our National Consent Policy directly points to the 8th Amendment as being a reason why pregnant people do not have a legal right to informed consent and refusal of treatment. Women leaving this system will attest to being railroaded and sidelined within their own care (see Aims Ireland testimonials).

I work within the system as it is now. While, individually, I strive to do my very best for each woman I care for, I know that the system is letting them down. I know that women are leaving our maternity system traumatised and broken down. Childbirth itself is not an inherently traumatic event. It is what we do to women in the name of “safety”: ass-covering and over-intervention without proper thought, consideration, conversation and shared decision-making with the people whose bodies we care for.

This brings me back to my first point: I already fear that I’m a nun. When the Tuam babies story broke, as well as the horror and the disgust that we all felt, I had a sneaking fear lurking… Those nuns were midwives. What if I’m a nun? What if I were a nun in Tuam, entering the institution to try to do my best for the forgotten and ostracised single mothers. What if I was kind as I caught their babies and helped them to their mother’s breast. What if I was gentle as I cared for infants while their mothers worked, coming back to feed them on schedule. What if my heart hurt as I dried the tears of a mother whose baby was adopted out to America. What if I felt sick with fear as I saw too many little babies dying. What if I knew that they weren’t being buried so that the money for them would keep coming in. What if I turned a blind eye because I was just a little nun cog-in-the-wheel. Sometimes I fear that I’m just a little midwife cog-in-the-wheel.

So I have to go and hold banners. I have to add my face to pictures and my feet to marches. I have to overcome my fear of putting my job in jeopardy by being seen to be overly-political, overly-public, overly-outspoken. I have to find my voice as a midwife and encourage others to find theirs… even if I’m not quite ready for the microphone and the megaphone. I have to nod to pro-choice badge-wearers and pro-choice colleagues. I have to have small conversations in work and outside of it. I have to join Facebook groups, scribble my thoughts, cuddle my loved ones, help my pregnant friends, and I have to breathe and tell myself I am not a nun. I am a midwife. I am with-woman not with-institution, however hard that is in my everyday work. I will stay within the institution because free maternity care is a public right and should be available to all, not just those who can afford health insurance and private midwifery care.

Some day I dream of the true mind and body safety that comes with continuity of midwifery care for all women, and the true informed relational decision-making that can only happen when our maternity institutions are built back up to humane levels, free of the stranglehold of patriarchal and religious control – both constitutionally and structurally. We have a chance in Ireland to reject our broken past and to go forward with conscious intent to do the right thing. So Repeal the 8th Amendment. And take back the National Maternity Hospital from the Sisters of Charity.

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