Irish Doctors May Not Be So Bad, Anti-Choice Activists Continue Policy Of Dishonesty

Remember the other day when I posted about Irish doctors comparing women to Nazis and rejecting a move to put guidelines in place to allow women to have abortions when their lives are at risk? As it turns out, things may be more complicated than they seem.

According to Irish Medical News, Irish anti-choice activists have been continuing their usual tactics of bussing people in without bothering to mention where they’ve come from, in this case to stuff the Irish Medical Organisation’s ballots.

According to the IMO’s rules, in order to be eligible to vote, members must be “registered or provisionally registered under the Medical Practitioners Act for the time being in force in the State”. According to IMN:

 Several former or never-before members joined in the weeks leading up to this year’s AGM and may have resigned hours after the abortion motions were debated… It is understood that some people who voted may not have been eligible to do so.

In addition to stuffing the ballot, anti-choicers engaged in some legitimate campaigning:

Pro-life activists picketed the gates of the Hotel Europe as the AGM began, and handouts outlining the motions with suggested comments to make before rejecting the motion were distributed throughout the auditorium.

However, it’s not all bad:

GP Dr Mary Favier of Doctors for Choice, who proposed the motions, told IMN that she believed the defeat presented an “overwhelmingly bad image for doctors” and added that Doctors for Choice were being “bombarded with requests” to join.

TL;DR

  • Anti-choicers show yet again that they have no respect either for women’s lives or for honest campaigning and debate.
  • Anti-choicers show yet again that they are badly out-of-touch with public opinion.
  • In response to anti-choice dishonesty and disrespect, pro-choice grassroots organisations gain yet more support and publicity.

If, by the way, you’re a doctor yourself, why not pop over to Doctors for Choice and show your support?

Irish Doctors May Not Be So Bad, Anti-Choice Activists Continue Policy Of Dishonesty
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Irish doctors compare women to nazis, reject motion to allow suicidal women to have abortions.

This week at the Irish Medical Organisation’s annual conference, Doctors for Choice put forward motions calling for regulation for abortion in the most limited of cases: where there is a “real and substantial” risk to the life of the pregnant person.

This should not be controversial.

This is precisely what Irish people have voted for in multiple referenda. What the Supreme Court has ruled. What should have been the law of the land for the past two decades. We are not talking about the dreaded “abortion on demand”- or, as I like to call it, “medical care at the discretion of the person who needs it and their doctor”. Doctors for Choice were looking for nothing more than regulations guaranteeing that women who will not survive without abortions are not forced to either travel overseas or die.

Let’s see what they had to say. From the Irish Times:

Dublin GP Dr Cyril Daly said he was reminded of German doctors before the second world war who decided that young children with conditions such as blindness or deafness had lives that were not worth living and who were subsequently killed with cynanide.

Dr Eleanor Corcoran, a consultant psychiatrist, said if the motion was passed there would be abortion on demand in no time.

Dr Peter O’Sullivan, a GP from Dublin, said he could not remember a case where a patient wanted an abortion following a criminal act.

Dr John Keogh of Kildare said the motion brought the abortion debate to another level. “We are now talking about, despite the traumatic and dreadful situation regarding the conception, aborting normal healthy babies”. He said conception should not be a criteria for abortion.

The motions were all defeated.

Welcome to Ireland.

As you’re here

It’s time to plug the Abortion Support Network, who provide financial assistance, accommodation and shedloads of support to women who need to travel to the UK for abortions. Yes, I plug them every chance I get. Wouldn’t you?

Also a plug for the Abortion Rights Campaign. Because it’s time we put the ASN out of business, don’t you think?

Irish doctors compare women to nazis, reject motion to allow suicidal women to have abortions.