A few weeks ago, I was at a family gathering and someone brought up the topic of abortion. A living room full of women, ranging from early twenties to late sixties, proceeded to drunkenly debate the issue into the wee hours of the morning. One of those women, who we’ll call “Jemima”, is a former NHS doctor. She informed us that, throughout her career, she had routinely refused to sign forms for women seeking abortion because she did not approve of their reasons for wanting one. She spoke with particular scorn about a woman she had refused on the grounds that she was wealthy and married, with two children already, and so could surely provide a loving and stable home for a potential third child? The idea that there were almost certainly considerations of which Jemima was not aware – or the novel concept that her patient simply did not want to be pregnant and her reasons are her own – didn’t enter the equation. Jemima insisted that, as a Catholic, she should not have to sign off on a procedure that goes against her beliefs.
I was appalled that it is (apparently) legal for medical professionals to engage in this sort of gatekeeping, especially in a country with relatively liberal abortion laws. And perhaps that’s naïve of me, but given what I know of the UK, I assume (I hope) that woman went on to find a GP who doesn’t refuse treatment on religious grounds and was able to get an abortion, having only been mildly inconvenienced by Jemima and her anti-choice views.
Mo chorp, mo rogha = My body, my choice. Protestors block O’Connell Bridge in Dublin City Centre on International Women’s Day 2017. Image via thedailyedge.ie
Dear Larissa Nolan,
I’m writing this open letter in response to your article, published in the Irish Times on 8th March 2017, entitled Why The Repeal The Eighth March Will Backfire. I thought this was an odd article to feature on International Women’s Day, especially considering the day’s events were indisputably dominated by the Repeal Movement across the country, but of course, you are not responsible for the Times’ editorial choices.
In your article, you admonish Repealers for failing to listen to dissenting voices and to engage with women like you, women “in the middle” who do not see abortion as a clear-cut issue. You say that this is the reason a referendum would fail. However, having engaged with your words to the best of my ability, it seems that – even though you place more value on life in the womb than I do – we both believe that the Eighth Amendment is a draconian and inhumane piece of legislation that needs to be repealed. You identify as pro-life, but you also say:
“I do not judge anyone who has ever come to the decision that an abortion is the best choice for them at a given time. That is their own business, borne out of their own individual circumstance.”
As a commenter points out, this sentiment is the essence of pro-choice.
Fuck Flattering is a performance piece about unlearning body hate. It’s about stepping off the hamster wheel of physical perfection. It’s about exploding conventional standards of hot and desirable, and finding beauty and power and strength in the wreckage.
In its current form, it’s part furious call-to-action, part no-bullshit crash course, part personal exploration of my own relationship with my body. I’ve written about my struggles and triumphs with body image in the past – Fuck Flattering feels like the logical conclusion of a long and turbulent journey towards learning to love the body I have right now, almost 100% of the time.
But the fun thing about Scene + Heard is that it’s a festival for developing work, so there’s going to be plenty of room for evolution built into the process between now and the end of February.
Will you be performing it?
I will! With my own body and my own voice! On the condition that I don’t expire from nerves before actually making it to the stage.
Where and when can I see?
You can catch Fuck Flattering for two nights – February 28th and March 1st at 8pm in the Main Space at Smock Alley Theatre. Once again, you can book tickets here. It is paired with another show called Handling It, a dark comedy about grappling with becoming a “victim” in the wake of sexual assault. A ticket for both shows is €10.
I am writing to you as a private citizen of the Republic of Ireland to express my strong support for a referendum on the Eighth Amendment of our country’s Constitution.
Like every other woman of child-bearing age in our country, I have never been afforded the opportunity to vote on my reproductive rights. The Eighth Amendment was signed into law five years before I was born. I am now twenty-eight years old. I have recently moved back to Ireland with the intention to settle here permanently, after five years of living and working abroad – the inevitable consequence of graduating at the height of a recession. Despite all its flaws and faults, I love my country and I believe in our ability to constantly better ourselves as a nation. If I ever decide to raise a family, I want to do it on Irish soil.
However, while living abroad as an Irish citizen, our country’s blanket ban on abortion has been a source of shame for me. I spent two years working in a United Nations organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. I was there in 2014, when the UN Human Rights Committee conducted its fourth periodic review of Ireland. A committee of eighteen human rights experts formally called for Ireland to hold a referendum on abortion.
Working within the UN system, many of my colleagues became aware of the findings of the Committee’s report as a matter of course. Several dropped by my desk to ask me to clarify the criticism: surely Ireland didn’t have a blanket ban on abortion? Even in cases of rape? What about fatal foetal abnormality? I was forced to explain, many times in the course of one week: “Yes, my country would force a rape victim to carry a resulting pregnancy to term. Yes, my country would force a woman to carry a dying foetus to term, even if her health is at risk. Yes, abortion is still a criminal offence in Ireland.”
Many of my colleagues came from countries plagued with their own state-mandated human rights abuses. They were all uniformly shocked that Ireland, a so-called “developed” country was still, in 2014, dragging its collective feet on such a basic issue of human rights.
That was 2014. It is now 2016 and nothing has changed. I am intimately familiar with the varied and valid criticisms that can and should be levelled at the United Nations, but the fact is that Ireland remains a member of this organisation by choice. It is both arrogant and ludicrous to claim membership in a group while disregarding its most basic tenets.
I also want to strongly affirm my belief that abortion access should not be restricted to cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality, and that whatever legislation replaces the Eighth Amendment should reflect this. I do not believe a woman’s right to access abortion should be offset by how much she has suffered. Like many women in my generation, I am single, sexually active, and unsure if I ever want children. I do not believe that consensual sex is the same thing as consenting to becoming pregnant, nor do I believe that childbirth should be treated as a sort of fitting punishment for women who openly enjoy sex. This insidious line of thinking is preserved and perpetuated by the Catholic Church, an institution with an utterly dismal track record of abusing the women and children unfortunate enough to fall into its care.
I do not believe abortion is murder. Nor do I believe that the majority of self-identified “pro-life” advocates believe that abortion is murder, as most, when pushed, will not agree that 200,000 Irish women should currently be serving life sentences in prison for this crime.
I believe that women are the experts on their own lives and their own bodies. I believe that the decision to end or to continue with a pregnancy belongs to no one except the pregnant person.
Above all, I believe that in a country founded on the principle of fair representation of the interests of all its citizens, I should have the opportunity to express my views by voting in a national referendum. I believe that democratic process on this issue is long overdue. It was overdue two years ago when I had to explain, shame-faced, to colleagues from all over the world, that pregnant people in my country do not have the right to basic bodily autonomy.
I sincerely hope I never have to feel that kind of shame again.
Thank you all for your time and your consideration.
Schoolchildren protest outside Leinster House in 1992 supporting the right of X, a 14 year-old rape victim, to travel for an abortion. Photograph: Eric Luke, via The Irish Times
Of course, if you live in Ireland, you don’t need a peer-reviewed study to tell you this. Our country is a live illustration of the trend. Every year, at least 3,500 Irish women (that’s an average of nine women per day) spend time, energy and money travelling to the UK to obtain a safe, legal abortion. Those who are unable to travel continue to turn to illegal “abortion pills” or even more drastic measures to end unwanted pregnancy – we’re not sure about their numbers, but it’s safe to assume they are not negligible.
For those of you who call yourselves “pro-life”, your one and only campaign point seems to be preserving our Constitution’s EighthAmendment at all costs. I’m sorry to inform you that your time and effort is sadly misplaced. Ireland is not and has never been “abortion-free”. Our blanket ban on abortion does little, if anything, to deter most women from ending unwanted pregnancy. And thanks to proximity of the United Kingdom and the 13th Amendment, most women in Ireland can access safe legal abortion if they really need to. (If they have the money, of course. And hold a passport that allows them to move freely between the UK and Ireland. And if they are healthy enough to travel. And not restricted by disabilities. And not younger than sixteen. And not trapped in abusive situation at home.)
All the evidence suggests that repealing our Eighth Amendment and replacing it with clear and humane legislation on reproductive rights will have a negligible impact on abortion rates among Irish women. Honestly, if you are truly invested in reducing abortion rates, preserving the Eighth is a bit of a damp squib.
But thankfully, there are lots of straightforward health and educational policies that are proven to reduce abortion rates! If you truly care about the welfare of Irish women (despite the frequently misogynistic tactics of your campaigns), there are plenty of ways to support them that don’t involve shaming or criminalizing them. If you are truly “pro-life”, there are many worthwhile causes that could use your voice behind them.
Manfeels Parkis the best pun that was ever stretched to its logical conclusion.
Hi pals! It’s been a while since I’ve updated, because things were very crazy at work, and then I was on holidays, and then I had roughly seven draft posts kind of halfway ready to go and just got paralysed and overwhelmed and decided I needed to lie down because blogging that’s just how it goes. Anyway. Here are some recent and not-so-recent articles I found equally entertaining and enlightening in the past month!
Patriarchy in action: the New York Times rewrites history Reclusive Leftist neatly busts open the myth that women have never invented anything or contributed to scientific advancement, then smashes it with a sledgehammar and throws the shards of patriarchal bullshit into the roaring furnace of common fucking sense.
Georgia Salpa, Catholic Guilt and Ireland’s Weird Misogyny The awesome Roisin Kiberd examines Ireland’s specific brand of “kitsch misogyny” as it manifests in Irish Models (not to be confused with models who happen to be Irish) “who occupy an uneasy cultural space between nation’s sweethearts and national joke.”
Harassment by Robot HugsCongratulations, you have found the only comic you will ever need for explaining the dynamics of sexual harassment to any well-meaning but otherwise obtuse men in your life.
No one is paying for my birth control but me A lot of people in the US are wringing their hands over employers having to “pay for birth control” for their slutty slutty female employees. That is to say, a lot of people in the US don’t seem to understand how their own incredibly fucked up health insurance system works.
All lead actors in The Gods of Egypt will be white because of course they will. But it doesn’t matter! Because race doesn’t matter! As long as all the main characters are white! This article is also a pretty good rundown of some of the more egregious cases of whitewashing in Hollywood’s recent history.
It’s The 24th Century, Shouldn’t We Have Fucked Up The Patriarchy More Than This By Now? Isn’t weird that science fiction can conceive of literally almost anything except a world without patriarchal norms? Also, is not taking your husband’s last name really an act of patriarchal subversion if “your” last name also inevitably comes from your father or your grandfather?
Manfeels Park is a webcomic that finds comments from real “hurt and confused men with Very Important Things To Explain”… and turns them into conversations between Jane Austen characters. And why yes, it is my new favourite thing on the Internet ever, in case you had to ask.
How to be PoliteAn entertaining and thoughtful personal essay on the “stubborn power of politeness”. As someone who is usually quite polite, but occasionally not polite AT ALL – and as a woman, which means my bog-standard politeness is often interpreted as a) a sign that I am a doormat or b) an invitation to touch my leg – it gave me a lot to think about.
Ireland has many good bridges, but the National Internship Scheme is not one of them. source
This is a longer and substantially less polite version of an article I wrote for an internal publication in a labour rights organisation (not in Ireland), where I am currently (lol) an intern (but a paid one!) But also not lol, because JobBridge is a trainwreck and needs to be scrapped immediately.
What is this bridge you speak of?
JobBridge is a national internship scheme set up by the Irish government, in response to high levels of unemployment caused by the spectacular crash of the Celtic Tiger economy in 2009. To qualify for the scheme, you must have been unemployed and receiving state welfare benefits for at least three months. If you secure an internship, you will be paid an extra fifty euro per week on top of your current benefits. The employer pays nothing, and may even be eligible for financial incentives. The total time you could potentially spend on the scheme is 18 months, divided over two or three internships. Which seems like an awfully long time considering that internships, by their nature, are intended to be temporary learning experiences that aid transition into real work.
massive hassle 
