The anger and the shame of being Irish

To say I am angry this morning would be a gross understatement. I am LIVID! I am furious with my so-called representatives that they have the gall to think that women and pregnant women should "wait". I am furious that they are asking us the wait after we have waited more than twenty years already. I am even more annoyed that they were not present for the debating in the Dáil last night and sauntered in at the end to vote. These are politicians who worry about the apathy of the electorate when it comes to voting and then give us last night's performance!

What I saw in the Dáil last night was an exercise in block voting and political points scoring. Labour and Fine Gael are talking about legislating on the Expert Group recommendations AFTER CHRISTMAS. Clare Daly's Bill would have allowed for the basis of legislation to be set in motion now. The objections from April were ironed out and they still voted against it! Passing the Bill wouldn't have made it come into effect straight away but at least it would have gone on to Committee stage. Fine Gael are stalling for time so they can pretend to their conservative members that they tried their hardest to stop whatever legislation they end up introducing. Labour want to try to take the kudos in the new year because they just see this as playing politics. So now we have to 'wait'. Now we have to wait and watch while they play politics with the life of women.

Those one hundred and one politicians that voted to gamble with women's lives should be ashamed of themselves.

Get the SPUC out of my country!

The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child are an interesting lot. They're a UK based group who have taken a keen interest in Ireland's laws and referendums over the past 30 years. When the country voted on the 8th Amendment SPUC were there - this was the attempt to ensure that Ireland remained abortion free forever more. They were also joined by groups with quaint names such as The Responsible Society (another British based organisation), The Council of Social Concern, The Irish Family League and a host of others all sounding as if they had just walked out of the 19th century along with the 1861 Offences against the Person Act, which, I might add, is still causing problems over a century and a half later. SPUC alongside supporting the Pro-Life amendment were also responsible for showing videos depicting abortion in hundreds of schools around the country. Throughout the 1980s, SPUC used the constitutional amendment in the courts to close down women’s counselling centres on the basis that providing information on abortion breached the rights of the unborn. In 1989 SPUC brought The Union of Students Ireland including Ivana Bacik, to court and threatened imprisonment for giving information to young women with crisis pregnancies.

At every Referendum in this country SPUC has been waiting in the wings. When the X-Case occurred in 1992 SPUC maintained that decision of the Supreme Court was perverse and that the Supreme Court, contrary to all reasonable expectations, allowed abortions in the case of threatened suicide. SPUC have been involved in campaigning against both of Ireland's divorce referenda. They called for Irish Catholics to vote 'No' in the Lisbon and Nice referenda. They even weighed in on our Presidential Election last year calling on the Irish people to vote for Dana, with John Smeaton, their director, stating in his blog "I pray that all Irish citizens who care about Ireland's historic defence of the sanctity of human life, and that all Irish citizens who care about defending their constitution, will get behind Dana's bid for the presidency." After Michael D. Higgins was elected President, Smeaton ran a full blog post on him asking 'Our Lady of Knock' and St. Patrick to pray for the Irish people as we would soon see the mistake we made in not voting for the good Catholic Dana. SPUC even decided that a 'No' vote was needed in our recent Children's Referendum saying that "(the) amendment, if passed, could potentially be a disaster for Irish families" and called upon Ireland's Catholic bishops "to do all they can to persuade the Irish people that such a constitutional change is not in the best interests of Irish families ".(Ah yes the Bishops, having already done so much for the best interests of Irish families as far as children are concerned)

It even hurts Michael D's head to think about this

We have a British based group that takes a somewhat unhealthy interest in the dealing of their neighbour, but who exactly are they? And who follows them? 

Enter Geoff @geoffsshorts who has the skill and patience to follow these things up and collate data. Now Geoff has previously run up the stats on Irish pro-life groups who *feigns surprise* all turned out to have a predominantly US based following. 

So what would we expect of a UK based pro-life group? That they would have a predominately UK based following - wrong. Pro-life groups this side of the water are yet again made up of predominantly US followers *sigh*

While there is a significant number of unknowns I think it is safe to say that not all of the unknowns will be from the UK. 

It is also interesting to note that despite SPUC's keen interest in Ireland the feeling is obviously not mutual, with only thirty six Irish followers. Looking at Geoff's spreadsheets of followers of SPUC, I found that about half of these thirty-six are pro-life/religious groups as opposed to individual people and a number of the others appear to be spammers. Flattering and all as it is that these groups are taking an interest in us, don't you ever wish sometimes that they'd just leave us the SPUC alone?

Thanks again to Geoff @Geoffsshorts for offering up the data on SPUC :)

 

How the lack of legislation makes me more likely to have an abortion

I put this up already and deleted it because of the personal nature, then I decided feck it - we need these stories out there.

Hopefully this will be a brief post.

This is going to be a very personal post but it's something that has been playing on my mind since hearing of the death of Savita Halappanavar and hearing the stories from other women filter through the media.

When I was fourteen I had extremely horrendous periods. My mother eventually got fed up of the doctor saying it was a viral infection (that just happened to coincide with my periods every single month) so she demanded a second opinion. I was referred to a Dublin hospital whose answer was to put me on the pill.
Fast forward more than a decade and I changed doctors to a more female friendly clinic. Having explained my past history the doctor sends me for further tests in light of the fact that I was due to be married the following year.

I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of what was diagnosed but it boiled down to this : if I did become pregnant, I have an extremely high risk of having miscarriages and if I don't miscarry I have a high risk of having a baby with a disability. The first is heartbreaking, the second wouldn't phase me.

Talking over with himself the other night I came the conclusion that if we had different laws here and I did accidentally become pregnant (and believe me we have taken strong measures to ensure it doesn't happen but y'know nothing is ever 100%), I'd probably have a wait and see what happened attitude, maybe I wouldn't miscarry, maybe we'd become wonderful parents.
Since I am living in a country where there is a huge grey area regarding women's reproduction, I'm afraid I'll have to be on the plane to England. Since I do have a high risk of miscarriage I won't be waiting for a hospital to dither over whether or not my life is in danger while they wait to do something. I won't risk leaving my husband without his wife, my parents without their daughter and my sister without me. Ireland the bastion of life makes me more likely to have an abortion.

Thanks for reading - I'm not sure how long I will leave this post up for

Give the government the Red Card for disability!

Do you remember the Special Olympics World Games 2003 that were held here in Ireland? Do you remember the hype and the hope and the pride? Do you remember when this country galvanised and volunteered and gave up their time and their houses (those who were hosting)? Do you remember what a wonderful time it was? Do you remember that we gave people with disabilities the opportunity to showcase their talents? To show their worth? To give them the opportunity to show us all the heroes they are?

The Fianna Fáil/PD government of that year promised us that a Mental Capacity Bill that would bring us in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities was imminent. It's now 2012 and there is sadly still no sign of this Bill. The Fine Gael/Labour government promised this Bill before the Summer recess, but nothing happened, they've promised it would happen before the Christmas recess but as of yet no movement. The lack of legislation in this area has dire consequences for people with disabilities and their families. I know this  because I have seen this first hand - because my sister is a wonderful lady of twenty three who just happens to have Down Syndrome. Tomorrow I get to spend the afternoon with her as my parents attend their first protest ever. Tomorrow I collect her from her day centre who have suffered the cuts of this government but who are still staffed by great men and women who go above and beyond the call of duty. For them I am thankful.

The government has promised to close unsuitable psychiatric institutions moving patients to more appropriate community-based facilities and to develop specific strategies for elderly patients and those with intellectual disabilities who remain under the care of mental health services.

NO ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN

The Government promised to ensure that the quality of life of people with disabilities was enhanced and that resources would be allocated reach the people who need them. They promised  to reform the delivery of public services to bring about back office savings to will protect front line services.

SERVICES HAVE BEEN REDUCED

WAITING LISTS CONTINUE TO GROW

PEOPLE USING SERVICES FEEL THEY HAVE NO CHOICE OR CONTROL OVER THE SERVICES THEY RECEIVE

These and many more are just a small number of examples of broken promises. People with disabilities account for 13% of our population, yet they are largely ignored and expected the bear the brunt of government cuts.

Tomorrow we say "NO MORE". Tomorrow, Wednesday 21st November at 2pm at the Central Bank, the Disability Rights Coalition are handing the government the Red Card. Everyone who supports the rights of people with disabilities should attend! This includes grandparents, cousins, neighbours, work colleagues, team mates etc etc. This is about demanding equal rights and if you believe in this, then please support this March to Dáil Eireann.

This week charities are looking for your Acts of Kindness - if you are free tomorrow please consider giving your time to protest as your act of kindness

Savita Halappanavar

I am not normally an over-emotional person, in fact I am often good naturedly accused of being somewhat emotionally stunted. I lack the understanding of what makes someone grieve about someone they don't know, celebrity deaths barely get a blink from me. However yesterday I couldn't update this blog. Yesterday I was shaking with rage and unable to type, yesterday I was on the verge of tears for a woman I never met and yesterday I was NEVER so ashamed to be Irish.
Yesterday I found out that a 31 year old woman, Savita Halappanavar, had died because of my country's archaic laws. The laws that should have been signed into legislation over twenty years ago.

The pro-life response was predictable as usual. Accusations of the pro-choice side "exploiting the tragedy" and using Savita's death as a "political football". While we're on that there was no mention of the horrific images used by the likes of Youth Defence and their ilk. There was no mention of their using images of miscarriages and parading them as pictures of abortion. There was no mention of the vigils for the baby in the X-case (despite that baby being miscarried and not aborted), no mention of the Youth Defence member who 'wistfully sighed' "He could have been my husband". Well here's some news Savita WAS somebody's wife, no 'could have' about it, she WAS Paveen's wife, she WAS somebody's daughter, she WAS a living, breathing human being with a myriad of interests and hopes and dreams. She was a Hindu living in Ireland who was told that "we are a Catholic country". We ARE NOT a Catholic country, countries don't have a religion - people do. Ireland is, or at least is supposed to be, a republic. A republic that is supposed to serve the needs of all it's people regardless of their creed, colour, sexual orientation or anything else. A republic whose hospital service should give the optimum care to everybody regardless. Alas it appears we are a republic in name only, Ireland does not serve or care about the health of its women. Ireland is a country that prioritises an already miscarrying foetus over the life of its mother. Savita and her family have paid the price for this.

Many times we have been told that there is no such thing as a life-saving abortion. Many times people have stood up and protested and said there was and is a clear need to legislate. Many times people protested that the lack of legislation could cost women their lives and still that old lie was the governments response. Last April the Medical Treatment Bill 2012 was tabled before the Dáil. A Bill that may have gone some of the way of preventing a death like this. ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN TDs voted against this Bill, including the three from my own constituency. In my constituency Labour TD Jack Wall, Fine Gael TD Martin Heydon and Fianna Fáil TD Sean O' Fearghail voted against that Bill. One of those TDs consistently received my number 1 vote in every election but NEVER AGAIN. Never again in my lifetime will any of those TDs ever get my vote. Through the National Women's Council of Ireland I contacted those TDs a short while ago asking them to prioritise legislating to protect women’s lives in line with the judgement of the Supreme Court in the X case and the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in the A, B and C v Ireland case.

NOT ONE OF THEM RESPONDED

Then the news broke the night before last. The news broke of the needless death of a young woman. A death caused by the political cowardice of the TDs in my constituency and their national counterparts.

The time has come for change. The time has come for this government to stand up and do their job after more than twenty long years. The time has come for the so called democratic government of the so called republic of Ireland to do their duty and legislate for what the people voted for in several referenda. The time has come for no more shame and no more deaths. If the government can't do their job then they need to leave - NOW.

There was a protest vigil for Savita outside Dáil Eireann last night and there will be another vigil this Saturday 17th November at 4pm beginning in the Garden of Remembrance and going to the Dáil again.

We need to ensure that this never happens again.

Rest in Peace Savita Halappanavar

The whole world is watching us.

.

Think before you speak.

Retard, Handicap, Spa, Spastic
They're just words, or so I'm told. If you say you're offended by their use then you're too thin skinned or too PC.

So why the visceral reaction?
I have a sister who has an intellectual disability, she is the light of my world, she has made me and makes me want to be a better person. Call me a bitch and I don't care, call her a retard and chances are I will skin you alive. The reason? I can stand up for myself, I can take in your insult, I can decide you're not worth the time of day and I can get the hell out of dodge. Insult my sister for her disability and you're pretty much the type of coward who only picks on the vulnerable.

As bad as directly insulting someone with a disability, is using their disability as an insult against other people.
Last night Ann Coulter tweeted "I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard". Coulter intended on insulting President Obama by calling him a retard - frankly like the letter writer below I also did wonder if she had considered other words but was worried about the backlash. I was livid and finding it hard to verbalise my anger at this happening. So I'm going to ask you to follow this link to the Special Olympics, where John Franklin Stephens, a global ambassador for the Special Olympics articulates his feelings on it far better than I ever could. By the way John has Down Syndrome.

'Retard' and words like it have evolved from being medical defining terms into mainstream as insults, believe it or not I've even heard the term 'Down Syndrome' flung around as an insult. We are told time and time again: 'they're just words', 'we're only havin' a laugh'. We are told that only assholes use the term 'retard'. I don't believe that's the case judging by some of the people I've heard use it. Regardless of who said it or how they meant it, the words are doing far greater damage than people think. The use of such words exclude people with disabilities as a different group, they tell them 'you're different, you are not like us, you're strange, in fact you're so strange we're going to use the term that we think describes you to insult someone else'. Such words tell people with disabilities that they are of so little worth that we only use them to insult others. The use of such words leads to further societal marginalisation of an already marginalised group.

I'll end by quoting the above John Franklin Stephens as once again he puts it far more succinctly than I can:
"I get the joke - the irony - that only dumb and shallow people are using a term that means dumb and shallow. The problem is, it is only funny if you think a "retard" is someone dumb and shallow. I am not those things, but every time the term is used it tells young people that it is OK to think of me that way and to keep me on the outside.

That is why using "retard" is a big deal to people like me."

Gender divides in the abortion debate

Last week in the course of one day alone I heard/read five different people use variants of the phrase "women/girls/sluts should keep their legs closed" in terms of the abortion debate. The phrase on its own makes my skin crawl in terms of its misogynism. It's reminiscent of the Madonna/whore complex. It implies that like the Biblical Eve before us we are solely responsible for the morals (or lack thereof) in the world, that men are unable to resist such temptresses and for abortion to end we just need to accept the child or not wanting a child to simply "keep our legs closed". Interestingly not once in the abortion debate have I ever heard someone suggest á la Twink that men should "zip up their mickeys". The other thing that use of such phrases indicates to me that the people who use them are not just anti-abortion they are also anti-sex for any reason other than procreation but that's a post for another day.

It stoked my curiosity though. Three out of the five people on that day were women and it got me to wondering about the gender of people who support either side of the debate and why. Discussing it with himself over a bottle of wine one night he says "it's a pity that we have no way of knowing". The great thing about being involved in different groups is that I now have an arsenal of people who have very particular sets of skills; skills they have acquired over a very long careers, skills that make them...(ahem, sorry got a bit carried away there). One such skilful person is Geoff @geoffsshorts, Geoff, over the course of knowing him vaguely on the net, has always impressed me with his ability to pull up stats on most things possible so I politely tweeted and asked could he run up data for me on this issue. He kindly complied and sent his findings to me and told me to run the commentary on my own blog...so no pressure on me at all then :)

What the data showed on Youth Defence is that the gender divide is pretty much 50/50, based on the first name of followers:

This wasn't overly surprising, after all pro-life seems to be a sort of 'default' position to hold. Many people find the idea of abortion abhorrent until they do more research. Many teenagers, including me when I was younger, hold pro-life views. Mainly because at that stage life comes in black and white and it's not until later that we discover the myriad of reasons why it is acceptable to hold a pro-choice view. I know myself on encountering Youth Defence at the tender age of thirteen signed up because "killing babies is bad mmmkay" until I went home and my mother explained to me that it wasn't that simple and told me to write them a letter retracting my interest in their group. Youth Defence target this angle through the photos and billboards they put up - who doesn't find them horrific? And they are horrific but they do not represent the reality of abortion.

The data on Choice Ireland shows a majority female interest, based on the first name of followers: 

I don't know for definite why this is. We are told time after time that abortion is not just a "woman's issue" and that the man should have a choice too. Something I whole heartedly agree with but I doubt there are many women seeking termination without at least discussing it with their partners. I know many of my male friends are pro-choice yet have never expressed interest in joining any of these groups. Himself even is pro-choice but hasn't signed up to support any pro-choice group and yet I have signed up to many. I discussed it with him last night and we came to the conclusion that choice is a topic where a lot of men can comfortably sit on the fence about. Most men will support their partners if they choose a termination but in reality the physical buck stops with the woman. However for women living in Ireland the choice is to keep the baby or travel to a different country in order to have a termination. So the women of Ireland can't afford to sit on the fence and therefore have a vested interest in supporting pro-choice groups in our own country.

Once again many thanks to Geoff who you can find here @geoffsshorts and here geoffsshorts.blogspot.ie/