August 15th, 2005
The IFPA, the Abortion issue and Ivana Bacik
If there’s one topic in Ireland that always generates massive and bitter debate, it’s the issue of abortion. Last week The Irish Family Planning Association launched their
Safe and Legal campaign to introduce legal abortion procedures to this country. What amazed me, was not the fact that this was reported, but how very few Irish bloggers, particularly female bloggers, seemed to comment on it. Once again, I can only imagine it’s to do with how contentious it is, and speaking out about it, will no doubt draw some vitrolic responses. Slugger O’Toole ran something on it last week and the comments - which as of today run to a total of 210 - make interesting reading.
Much of it focused on the ‘when does life begin?’ aspect and then, wrongly, several posts tried to suggest that men shouldn’t have an opinion on it. Gloria Steinham once said: “If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament” (or as someone pointed out over on Slugger, “If men were the ones who gave birth, abortions would be carried out in their lunchbreaks”). When I was taking to a male friend about it over the weekend, he put it succinctly: “No one supports abortion, but everyone should support freedom and choice.” The words ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ which are central to the issue are often conveniently omitted from the debate by those who consider themselves ‘pro-life’. Who’s life? The life of a woman who doesn’t want to have a baby?
Abortion is far from pleasant and I’m sure no one who makes a decision to have one, does so lightly. The personal has become the political, which is why Ivana Bacik and the IFPA are taking their case (on behalf of three Irish women who have had abortions in the UK), to the European Court of Human Rights. In Fact, Ah has also blogged about this and asks why Bacik has gone this route and not asked the Irish electorate. Perhaps this is because while most people will say they oppose abortion, the channels of communication on the issue still remain closed.
What Bacik and co. are trying to do is to ask people - even those who are vehemently anti-abortion - to acknowledge the fact that an increased number of women went to the UK last year for abortions. The figure of 6217 for 2004 does not include the number of backstreet abortions among the immigrant community or figures for European countries like Spain, the Netherlands and France. Thanks to low-cost flights Irish women are also travelling there for abortions and no figures are available.
Paul Cullen’s profile of Bacik in Saturday’s Irish Times accuses of Bacik, and not in an overtly negative way, of “spreading herself too thinly” when it comes to causes from refugees to ASBOs. When she’s not working alongside the IFPA, she is the Reid Professor of Criminal Law at Trinity College, a practising barrister and and a writer.
Bacik should be at least be applauded because she and the IFPA are prepared to address the huge numbers of women travelling across the water each year for terminations. Even if many, or perhaps most, of this country deems itself anti-abortion, it’s time to take collective heads out of the sand when it comes to the fate of over 6,000 women every year.
August 15th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
With all due respect to Ms. Bacik, we had one President Robinson already.
I know that the minority have as much rights as the majority, but this is something that should be decided in Ireland, by the Irish, not by Europe.
August 15th, 2005 at 10:48 pm
With all due respect to Fergal, this will not be the first time that we have sought recourse to our European justice system in an attempt to rectify outmoded and backward Irish legislation. I wish Ms Bacik and the IFPA every success with their case and hope that finally we can begin to have some sentient discussion on this island about the abortion issue. I am not pro-abortion, that is my choice. But I would not dare to make choices for other women and men facing the difficult decisions that a crisis or unplanned pregnancy inevitably brings. Nor do I wish to see the continuation of brutish back street abortion clinics, or Irish women fleeing like convicts to other jurisdictions - often alone and always without proper psychological care or post-op medical follow-up. We have had several opportunities to amend our legislation on abortion and have yet to succeed in providing women with choice. Why should Europe not decide? Someone has to take measured and meaningful steps to ensure that the very Irish practice of looking the other way when others are in difficulty is finally obliterated. Who are these 6,000 women? They are our friends, our daughters, our mothers and our sisters and we are simply not talking to them.
August 17th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
I hate talking about this issue because whatever my opinion is there is generally someone out there who will try to bludgeon you to death with their opinion. However on the point that this issue is now being taken to Europe, I wonder if Senator Norris had not done the same in the mid 1980’s would homosexuality still be illegal in this country. We have a very conservative electorate and an equally conservative constitution, without European intervention many human rights issues such as this and gay rights just wouldn’t be addressed in this country. Also most people I know would rather avoid arguments with both sides and the pain of a referendum on the matter, so this is an easier option….
August 17th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
“A decision that should be made in Ireland”, indeed it should, by Irish women. Not the government who’s hands are only raised when the Church pulls the strings.
Indeed it should be made in Ireland, it should have been made years ago in Ireland. What if when Ireland had joined the EEC, that had been conditional on bringing our legislation into the 20thC, imagine how quickly that would have come about, no subsidies, unless you allow women freedom of choice on reproduction. Why the very same would have been queuing up to put their X and thumb print on the referendum.
And as Fi says, what would be the now situation on gay rights had someone not had the temerity to take it to Europe.
What is it my grandfather, a hero of the Irish Republic, yes he put his life and his families on the line for it, and was pretty disappointed with the Catholic Facist Dictator that we ended up with, he used to say, “what do we have in this country, an iron curtain, no it’s the shamrock curtain.
August 17th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
Fergal,
leaving aside that I have little or no time for Ivana Bacik, can you explain what you mean by minority here? I don’t want to get into a moralistic argument on the rights or wrongs of abortion but ultimately, women are not in a minority in the world and they are directly affected by this. Moral objections to abortion in this country have been particularly propogated by a minority of men who are (in theory at least) unfamiliar with the practicalities of reproduction.
So what’s your point - this subject isn’t important because Ivana Bacik is handling it and she’s a poor man’s Mary Robinson, or what? Or this case shouldn’t happen because she’s not Mary Robinson. That’s the impression I get. The point is the case has been taken and now we have to deal with it. Who the barrister is is of secondary importance.
We have, currently, a major problem with the idea of grey areas, with the concept that the world is not black and white. Believing things are black and white when they aren’t is delusional.
August 18th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Thanks for all those comments, many valid points raised here. That Girl has followed on from this post with some interesting observations.
August 24th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
In fairness, I heard from a Dutch acquaintance of mine the other month that she was asked directions on the street in Amsterdam by an Irish girl looking for a particular abortion clinic. So the UK figures don’t tell the whole story.
I’m dead-set against abortion myself, and I think that we should continue to keep the ban here. Pregnant women are under enough stress without feminist activists and abortion doctors trying to steer them towards this appalling act of violence by a mother gainst her own child.
(Having said that, I’ve little time for personalised attacks on Bacik and others)
August 26th, 2005 at 5:54 pm
With all due respect to everyone, in all fairness and other sundry beginnings, there are two major reasons why Ivana Bacik will never be president:
1) She looks like one of the bad-guy ladies from a Bond movie.
2) She has a name like one of the bad-guy ladies from a Bond movie.
Apart from that I’m sure she’s as lovely as either Mary. But she won’t be picking curtains for Aras an Uachtaráin any time this century because she’s too goddam scary. People cower below her election posters, worried that she probably has lasers in her eyes or could kill a man with a poisoned blow-dart from 200M away through thick jungle. Either that or snap his neck between her thighs.
August 4th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Why do we have to resort to violence against the unborn child? In war scenes we see dead children being cradled by grieving mothers and fathers.The architects of this carnage shrug and tell us it is unavoidable collateral damage. Anne Frank in her diary reminded us that its not just the world leaders who wage war.No all of us can do it at a personal level to our neighbour.If we want a violent solution to every crisis well then thats the world we choose to live in.But lets not kid ourseleves that some are more equal than others when we are the ones tempted to take life.