Ireland

Big Damn Abortion Heroes in Ireland: Part One

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

I’ve talked a lot recently about people getting in the way of access to abortion in Ireland. The women who ratted their housemate out to the police because she wasn’t sorry enough about her abortion. I’ve gotten deeply snarky about people who make mind-bogglingly ignorant arguments against pregnant people’s right to choose.

I have’t talked that much about the other side: the people who speak up. Those who tell their stories. People who risk arrest and villification to choose their own path or to support others’ choices. The big damn abortion heroes of our time.

As there are a lot of people to share, this post is split this into three parts.

Do you need an abortion?

It’s illegal in the Republic of Ireland to encourage anyone to have an abortion. It’s possible to provide information, but not to tell someone that you think an abortion might be a good option for them. Conversely, it’s perfectly legal to say whatever you like to encourage someone not to have one.

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If you’re in the North or South of Ireland and are considering abortion, Need Abortion Ireland is there for you. This website has everything you might need, whether you’re travelling to the UK or need a safe way to access abortion pills on the island. They’ve a text support service that you can contact at any time before, during or after your abortion. They’ll even send you a care package full of “pyjamas, snacks, films, anything you need to make your abortion experience as comfortable as possible“. If you need an abortion and you’re feeling isolated? These are the big damn heroes who’ll do everything short of coming to your house, propping your feet up and putting the kettle on for you themselves.

Continue reading “Big Damn Abortion Heroes in Ireland: Part One” →

Big Damn Abortion Heroes in Ireland: Part One
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Six Top Tips To Avoid Being Despised By Anyone With A Shred Of Humanity: Abortion Edition

Aoife O'Riordan, , , 10 Comments

[CN: anti-choice, abuse, manipulation, pregnancy, police, miscarriage]

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Remember yesterday’s post about the anti choicers crying for the return of forced labour camps for people who have abortions, after one woman was just convicted of having had an abortion as a teenager? Just when you thought that woman’s situation couldn’t get any worse, it just did. I woke up this morning to an interview in the Belfast Telegraph with her housemates. The people- and I use that term in its loosest sense- who called the police to have her arrested. Those people- one woman in particular- spoke to the paper because they just couldn’t stand people vilifying them on the Internet.

You know what’s a really great way to not get vilified? Not doing morally abhorrent things. Not having a teenage girl arrested cause you don’t like the choices she made about her own body.

This advice is for them. Continue reading “Six Top Tips To Avoid Being Despised By Anyone With A Shred Of Humanity: Abortion Edition” →

Six Top Tips To Avoid Being Despised By Anyone With A Shred Of Humanity: Abortion Edition

Bring back forced labour for abortion convictions? Precious Life would.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , 1 Comment

Yesterday a woman in Northern Ireland was given a three-month prison sentence- suspended for two years- for the crime of taking an abortion pill. She was 19 years old at the time.

Abortion is legal in the rest of the UK, and pregnant people have the right to travel overseas for a termination. However, while someone resident in England, Scotland or Wales can almost always have their abortion funded by the NHS, people living in Northern Ireland can’t, and have to pay for private care. Here’s what happened to this woman:  Continue reading “Bring back forced labour for abortion convictions? Precious Life would.” →

Bring back forced labour for abortion convictions? Precious Life would.

Interesting things I have seen: The Easter Rising, with bonus Lego-based history lessons.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Here’s what I think I know about the Easter Rising:

  1. It happened a hundred years ago on Easter Monday 1916
  2. That’s not actually a hundred years ago. Easter Monday in 1916 wasn’t until April 24th. But this weekend is the long weekend so we might as well commemorate it now?
  3. A bunch of lads (and also Constance Markievicz) tried to declare the Irish Republic while the Brits were distracted with WW1.

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    Constance Markievicz: RIDE. Photo by National Library of Ireland on The Commons

  4. The Brits weren’t that distracted.
  5. Everything that could go wrong, did. The guns got chucked into the sea. Everyone got mixed messages about when they were meant to be having the revolution in the first place. Not surprising, when you remember that it was a bunch of poets and philosophers planning the thing. Military logistics may not have been part of their skill sets at the time.
  6. They took over the General Post Office in Dublin. And some other places? A bridge, I think? Maybe a park?
  7. At the time, most people in Dublin were about as impressed by the Rising as they are by the Luas strikes this week: not at all.
  8. The great Hanna Sheehy Skeffington’s husband (Mr Sheehy Skeffington?), got executed while he was trying to stop people looting. I learned this from a bus stop the other day. The S-S’s were massive feminists and Mr S-S had one of the greatest beards of the early 20th Century, until he was killed.
  9. Hundreds of people were killed.
  10. The British Army bombed the city centre almost to the ground. They left the front wall of the GPO, though. That’s handy ’cause it left us a nice sheltered spot to get up on soapboxes and Have Opinions of a weekend afternoon.
  11. After a few days (five? I think it was five?) the leaders surrendered. A few weeks later they were executed by firing squad.
  12. One of them- Plunkett, I think?- got married the same day he was shot.
  13. James Connolly had already been shot to bits in the Rising so they had to tie him to a chair in front of the firing squad.
  14. Constance Markievicz was pissed that they were too cowardly to execute a woman.
  15. Irish people love an underdog. Killing the leaders of the Rising was a bloody awful idea. Especially if you give them a few weeks to write noble, brave letters to the people they love and have poignant last moments where they stare unflinchingly into the rifles and whatnot. It pretty much set in motion the War of Independence and lost Britain this bit of its empire.
  16. You can’t throw a stone these days in Ireland without hitting something named after one or the other of them. Connolly, Pearse, and Ceannt (and maybe more?) got train stations. Markievicz got a swimming pool.

Continue reading “Interesting things I have seen: The Easter Rising, with bonus Lego-based history lessons.” →

Interesting things I have seen: The Easter Rising, with bonus Lego-based history lessons.

An Incomplete List Of Gendered Injustices Against Irish Women, And The People Working To Change Them. Part Two.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , , 2 Comments

CN: Transphobia, transmisogyny, homophobia, VAW.

On International Women’s Day this year, I started writing a post about the areas in which women in Ireland face marginalisation or disadvantage because of our gender, and the people who are working for inclusion and justice in these areas. The post wasn’t supposed to take very long.

Or so I thought.

Instead? My list of topics is growing. Daily. I decided to split my post into two on Tuesday. As of right now, it’s looking like a three-parter. However.. who knows? We might yet hit three. Or four. Maybe more.

If you haven’t read it, here’s part one. Give it a read and then get back here, ’cause we have a lot to get through.

8. Support for trans girls and women

This summer, Ireland passed a Gender Recognition Bill. Overall it’s a fantastic piece of legislation, allowing for everyone over 18 to self-declare their own gender identity and have their legal documents, including birth certificates, updated to reflect this.

Despite this, trans people- especially trans women and girls- continue to be marginalised in Irish society. The Gender Recognition Bill doesn’t recognise anybody under sixteen, and if you’re between sixteen and eighteen you need a court order from a Family Court as well as parental consent to apply. We’re failing our trans children when we tell them that we won’t recognise them for who they are. Children shouldn’t have to learn to navigate the risk of being outed to and by everyone in their lives. Being recognised as who they are shouldn’t depend on being lucky enough to have a supportive family.

It’s not just young trans girls (and boys) who still face marginalisation here in Ireland. Transphobic abuse and workplace discimination is rampant. Trans woman are seen as threatening in spaces where they’re most at risk of violence. Healthcare professionals are largely ignorant of trans issues, and 3/4 of trans people have had a negative experience with them as a result.

I could go on.

TENI do fantastic work to support and advocate for trans people in Ireland

9. Violence against queer and non gender-conforming women

Continue reading “An Incomplete List Of Gendered Injustices Against Irish Women, And The People Working To Change Them. Part Two.” →

An Incomplete List Of Gendered Injustices Against Irish Women, And The People Working To Change Them. Part Two.

GE16 Red Lines: Who is left to vote for?

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , , , , , , 13 Comments

To the USians reading this: the election I’m talking about is the Irish general election- GE16-  on Friday. Not the Presidential election that you have in nine months. Our election campaign? Three weeks long. 

With one day to go before the election, I don’t know who I want to vote for. Who not to vote for? That’s easy, in a constituency that includes the founder of Identity Ireland. It’s an easy rule of thumb: if you’re being invited to speak at Pegida rallies, you don’t get a preference.

Picture of a candidate flyer supporting Peter O'Loughlin. It's annotated. By me. Suffice to say that I don't agree with his blatantly racist views.
That’s easy. Another easy one? Renua’s Paddy O’Leary. A flat tax? Three-strikes-and-life policy for crime? From a party that began when Lucinda Creighton couldn’t stomach dying women being able to access abortions? Continue reading “GE16 Red Lines: Who is left to vote for?” →

GE16 Red Lines: Who is left to vote for?

Six Abortion Movies I Want To See.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , 11 Comments

I’ve got a bone to pick with you, World. You see, I’ve seen a few abortion movies in my time. I’m getting tired of seeing the same old stories.

There’s the girl who gets pregnant, considers abortion, and then changes her mind at the last minute (Juno). There’s the tragic story set somewhere in a bleak, desaturated past where someone gets pregnant. Her cruel and backwards culture would never accept such a thing. So she has an abortion and it is terrible/painful/isolating/all of the above. She goes on with her life (or maybe dies) and everything looks like it’ll continue being bleak and secretive forever. And then there’s the story of the abortion provider- also living in Bleak, Desaturated Past- who does her work in hidden back rooms and probably something terrible happens to her too.

Not exactly light entertainment.

Drawing of a big red bus driving down a road. It's passing a sign saying "Ferries 200k"

Continue reading “Six Abortion Movies I Want To See.” →

Six Abortion Movies I Want To See.

A guide to abortion services and information for people in Ireland.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , 2 Comments

This post is inspired by and adapted from a post originally published  at Feminism and Tea, also on the topic of abortion services. However: this is me saying all of it, and I take full responsibility for that.

Picture of a coathanger and the number "8th", crossed out in red.

Abortion is illegal in almost all circumstances in Ireland. In this post is information on the legal situation in the Republic, and how you can get the services you need. I’ll be sharing information on both legal and illegal methods of accessing safe abortions. If you need to use the latter, be careful! I’ll advise you on precautions that you can take to make sure everything goes smoothly and you get what you need. Continue reading “A guide to abortion services and information for people in Ireland.” →

A guide to abortion services and information for people in Ireland.

Three years on from Savita Halappanavar’s death: My country still kills women.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , 6 Comments

Savita Halappanavar died three years ago today. She died of septicaemia. She died from a drawn-out miscarriage that went untreated too long. She died after spending a week in hospital.

A picture of a paper tealight-holder on a table with some papers. Printed on the holder is a young woman's face (Savita Halappanavar), and the words "Never Again"

Savita may have died of blood poisoning, but she was killed by the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution. Two decades of Irish governments have blood on their hands. They were too cowardly to legislate to protect pregnant people’s lives.

Three years ago, I wrote that my country kills women: Continue reading “Three years on from Savita Halappanavar’s death: My country still kills women.” →

Three years on from Savita Halappanavar’s death: My country still kills women.

Those People With Their Fancy Cars: A small case study in how we normalise the exclusion of the Other.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , 7 Comments

CN: anti-Traveller racism, discussion of processes of dehumanisation and marginalisation of the Other.

You know Lewis’s Law? It’s the one that says that comments on any article about feminism justify feminism. I was reminded of it- in a very different context, of course- when I woke up this morning to the following set of Tweets responding to my last post.

The tl;dr for my last post, to get you up to date:

Irish settled people’s bigotry toward our Irish Travellers is all-pervasive, considered socially acceptable, and utterly vile. We act as though treating Travellers as if they were subhuman is perfectly okay. In a housefire last week, ten people from two Traveller families died in a housefire, and their neighbours’ homes were destroyed too. The next day, relatives of the deceased were refused entry to a bar where they went to get lunch. And residents around the area picked for emergency accommodation for the survivors have been blockading the site to prevent their temporary homes being built.

Back to those tweets.

This set of replies is a perfect example of Lewis’s Law. It’s long, but I think that it’s useful to read through it because what we’ve got here is textbook. And by ‘textbook’, I mean that if I were teaching this stuff I’d have already set my students analysing these. This is how prejudice and marginalisation are normalised. This is how we do it. Take a look at the entire sequence:

Continue reading “Those People With Their Fancy Cars: A small case study in how we normalise the exclusion of the Other.” →

Those People With Their Fancy Cars: A small case study in how we normalise the exclusion of the Other.