Abortion/ *Note* Thread Closing Shortly! ! !

Hotblack Desiato

Funny how the upset of those who want an abortion and can't get one (or have to do so at great difficulty, expense, and in secrecy) is never mentioned...

Hotblack Desiato

swampgas wrote: »

I'm actually somewhat surprised (naive of me I know) that YD get this huge opportunity to soapbox at length like this. Who exactly do these people claim to represent?
:mad:

They would kick up murder if excluded though and no politician has the guts to stand up to them.

robindch

Didn't get a chance to turn on the feed, but I gather that Michael Nugent's name plate read "Atheist Church" -- the committee was asked to change it and they did, and apologized.

I wonder how the religious would react if they were treated like that?

And btw, did anybody grab a piccy of it?

robindch

swampgas wrote: »

[...] YD get this huge opportunity to soapbox at length like this.

There's a certain benefit to be had by allowing groups like YD to use enough rope that they hang themselves.

swampgas wrote: »

Who exactly do these people claim to represent?

American money, it seems:

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/why-american-pro-life-dollars-are-pouring-into-ireland/266981/

The Atlantic wrote:

Ireland has some of the strictest abortion laws in the world with its constitutional guarantee of the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn. As a result, an average of 5,000 Irish women travel abroad for abortions every year while customs seize abortion pills purchased online. Compared to many other developed nations including the US, its pro-life movement would seem to be operating from an unusually dominant position, with relatively little to protest about. So why is the American pro-life lobby throwing its weight behind Ireland?

The American Pro-Life Action League recently pledged financial support, amounting to "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to the Irish pro-life lobby, according to spokesman Joseph Scheidler. Seeing Ireland as the last bastion of abortion-free Europe along with Malta, as he told the Sunday Business Post, Scheidler singled out the Irish pro-life group Youth Defence as one of the main recipients of large funds because "They need the money for publicity. Abortion is about conversion and it's very hard to convert people in masses, and that is why people like Youth Defence go out into the street."

Youth Defence is perhaps best known for the shocking, enlarged poster images of aborted fetuses that they regularly display on Dublin's main thoroughfare and at stalls and demonstrations around the country. They were founded in 1992 in the family home of a long-time conservative organizer who famously uttered the words "Go away ye wife-swapping sodomites!" at pro-divorce campaigners and had other unkind words to say about feminists who used contraception, city-dwelling feminists, and feminists who were also foreigners. Her son and daughter are also co-founders of the affiliated group The Life Institute, who are currently being investigated by the state ethics watchdog for potential breach of lobbying regulations.

70 percent of Youth Defence's Twitter followers come from the US and until recently their donation form was in dollars instead of euros. Nevertheless, the group is Irish and has quite a pedigree in Irish campaigning. Prominent spokespeople and supporters have included ultra-nationalist anti-immigration campaigners as well as anti-IVF, anti-divorce, anti-stem cell research, anti-gay rights and anti-contraception campaigners. They run national road shows, conferences, nationwide billboard campaigns and schools programmes, which they claim will make each new generation of young people "harder to fool than the abortion industry would have expected."

In 1992 Youth Defence's immediate goal was to campaign to ensure that the case of a 14-year-old suicidal rape victim who was not allowed to have an abortion abroad, which brought thousands onto the street in protest, would not lead to any liberalisation of abortion legislation. In 2006 they organised around the "Ms. D" case in which a 17-year-old had to fight a high court battle to be allowed to leave the state to have an abortion abroad. The girl had discovered that her baby was missing a substantial portion of its brain and skull and would be unable to survive outside the womb. Again Youth Defence opposed any legislation that would allow for abortion.

Now, all of this may leave you with the impression that the Irish people are as staunchly anti-abortion as their government. Certainly much of the international coverage in recent weeks following the death of a Savita Halappanavar, a woman who died in an Irish hospital having been refused an abortion, suggested as much. Cut-away shots on one Al Jazeera report gave the impression of Irish cities populated by spooky statues of the Virgin Mary.

The harshness of the Irish state on this issue is actually something of an anachronism in a country whose citizens are abandoning religion more rapidly than almost any other in the world. The Irish people have long been more liberal on abortion than their government. The fact that Youth Defence has been able to impose their will more effectively than the Irish people or the European Court of Human Rights for so long is testament to the power of their enormously well-funded campaigns.

Because of such groups, Ireland is still a place where smear campaigns against government ministers who express even the most limited pro-choice sentiments are commonplace. Much heat was generated on Twitter recently, in a controversy dubbed #listgate, when a pro-life pundit threatened to publish the names of journalists who had expressed pro-choice sentiments on social media following the death of Halappanavaar, thus bringing their objectivity as reporters into question. Youth Defence recently distributed literature to 1.4 million homes and used advertising space in 25 newspapers to attack particular politicians for their role in "opening the door to abortion on demand".

Last month the Irish government took a first step toward loosening its anti-abortion legislation when it revealed its plan to allow abortion when the mother's life is at risk. This move had public support but it will apply to very few of the thousands who travel for abortions every year. The majority of the population remains against abortion on demand.

Collective shame is a hard thing to shake. In school, a pro-life religion teacher showed my class the gruesome and misleading anti-abortion video The Silent Scream. Rather than feeling outraged by this, most of the girls I went to school with would rather not talk about the issue and some undoubtedly feel a sense of shame at having taken that lonely trip to England themselves like so many before them.

Scheidler says that Ireland has great symbolic importance to the pro-life movement. It has long been assumed in Irish pro-choice circles that Youth Defence were getting funding from the US but in Scheidler's boastful pledge it seemed as though the pro-life movement is preparing itself for a fight. As a younger, bolder pro-choice generation seems to be emerging in Ireland and demanding more radical measures, the issue will inevitably have to come to a referendum to change the constitution and the American pro-life lobby may fear the last bastion of abortion-free Europe will be lost forever. But if this generation of pro-choice activists is still counting small change by then, what Youth Defence and their American sponsors are preparing for won't be much of a fight.

loveisdivine

Did that pro life woman (cant see her name) just say "leave the emotive language out of it" ??!!

Is she for real!!?

Beruthiel

robindch wrote: »

Didn't get a chance to turn on the feed, but I gather that Michael Nugent's name plate read "Atheist Church"

LOL
That's feckin' hilarious!

Morag

Caroline Simons said she didnt' know what about the EWTN video and the culture of death mentioned. Odd that cos she's in the flipping thing.

Both priests and pro lifers trying to say that the Masters of maternity hospitals are using the work Abortion in the wrong way.

lazygal

Morag wrote: »

Caroline Simons said she didnt' know what about the EWTN video and the culture of death mentioned. Odd that cos she's in the flipping thing.

Both priests and pro lifers trying to say that the Masters of maternity hospitals are using the work Abortion in the wrong way.

Words mean what they say they mean, but other people's words are meaningless, is the message there.

Sarky

Morag wrote: »

Caroline Simons said she didnt' know what about the EWTN video and the culture of death mentioned. Odd that cos she's in the flipping thing.

Why, that would make Caroline Simons a big f*cking liar. Imagine that.

fisgon

Apparently John Crowne tweeted during the Catholic Church's submission to the committee (I'm slightly paraphrasing..) "Every time they speak I lapse a little more."

lazygal

Sarky wrote: »

Why, that would make Caroline Simons a big f*cking liar. Imagine that.

Colour me shocked. A pro lifer with links to Ganley telling fibs. Lies make baby Jesus cry. For shame Caroline. For shame.

UDP

Morag wrote: »

Caroline Simons said she didnt' know what about the EWTN video and the culture of death mentioned. Odd that cos she's in the flipping thing.

Marcella Corcoran Kennedy tells Caroline Simons she can’t understand why Simons doesn’t know about the EWTN video, considering she appears in it.
Simons: “I wasn’t aware that I was on it. I don’t know any agents of the culture of death, I hope. Certainly they haven’t introduced themselves to me.”

lol

Sarky

That's the trouble with lying, really. It gets increasingly difficult to maintain such an alternate reality web of people, places and events. It's inevitable that it'll eventually collapse.

Obliq

robindch wrote: »

Didn't get a chance to turn on the feed, but I gather that Michael Nugent's name plate read "Atheist Church" -- the committee was asked to change it and they did, and apologized.

I wonder how the religious would react if they were treated like that?

And btw, did anybody grab a piccy of it?

Unfortunately no, grrr. Michael Nugent just confirmed that on fb - fierce funny :D

B0jangles

The Pro-Choice speakers are addressing a very much emptier room than any other set of speakers. Seems like our legislators are not interesting in even hearing what they have to say.

rainbow kirby

B0jangles wrote: »

The Pro-Choice speakers are addressing a very much emptier room than any other set of speakers. Seems like our legislators are not interesting in even hearing what they have to say.

Says it all really :mad:

eyescreamcone

I hope the godsquad have a good look at today's polls. Game is up.
Abortion will be legalised in Ireland. It's what the people wanted 20 years ago and still want in 2013.

Sarky

B0jangles wrote: »

The Pro-Choice speakers are addressing a very much emptier room than any other set of speakers. Seems like our legislators are not interesting in even hearing what they have to say.

Anyone capable of doing up a list of who left? I want to talk to them.

Morag

The "citizen's dialogue" was held in Dublin City Hall.
Those inside included Eamon Gilmore and Enda Kenny.
And outside the point being made that women esp pregnant women are not equal citizens
as pointed out by Minister Shatter.

Sarky

Shame about the flouride poster on the right. :pac:

B0jangles

Sarky wrote: »

Anyone capable of doing up a list of who left? I want to talk to them.

Alas, I don't know where you'd get footage of the previous sessions. It isn't as bad as I thought at first; the seats near the Cathaoirleach are still pretty well filled, it's the ones behind the witnesses that are very noticably emptier than they were before the break.

eviltwin

B0jangles wrote: »

The Pro-Choice speakers are addressing a very much emptier room than any other set of speakers. Seems like our legislators are not interesting in even hearing what they have to say.

That is really depressing....I would have thought there would be a requirement for them to stay until the end.

Galvasean

B0jangles wrote: »

The Pro-Choice speakers are addressing a very much emptier room than any other set of speakers. Seems like our legislators are not interesting in even hearing what they have to say.

Perhaps they have a penchant for comedy and know they won't get it from the pro-choice people?
Having read up on what the pro-lifers have been saying today it sounds like an absolute clusterfunk on their behalf.

Obliq

Galvasean wrote: »

Perhaps they have a penchant for comedy and know they won't get it from the pro-choice people?
Having read up on what the pro-lifers have been saying today it sounds like an absolute clusterfunk on their behalf.

Where are you reading up on what they said? Watched the morning churches & atheists - couldn't bring myself to sit through the anti-choicers. Glad to hear they didn't come across well - I was happy to see the CC earlier showed themselves up for being the least compassionate church there (besides the Presbyterians).

Nodin

Obliq wrote: »

Where are you reading up on what they said? Watched the morning churches & atheists - couldn't bring myself to sit through the anti-choicers. Glad to hear they didn't come across well - I was happy to see the CC earlier showed themselves up for being the least compassionate church there (besides the Presbyterians).

I just read a summation and that was the impression I had myself.

Obliq

FFS, the cheek of the slimey little bollix:

12.27 – Rónán Mullen has a point of order – asking if one person who attended was mistakenly overlooked. He says it would be “appropriate and generous” if an opportunity was given to pro-life barrister Maria Steen (who is present alongside the panellists, though not a panellist herself) to speak to the committee.

:mad::mad::mad: aaaand....sure enough:

Maria Steen, a barrister with Iona, is invited to step in to comment that the 1861 legislation cannot apply to a doctor who acts in good faith because they require the aforementioned ‘mens rea’. The 1861 law does have an important effect in deterring backstreet abortions, she says, commenting that those laws are still in place in 1861 to underline the illegality of improperly obtained abortions.

http://www.thejournal.ie/live-stream-liveblog-oireachtas-abortion-hearings-day-3-748102-Jan2013/

Obliq

and then she gets another go:

13.22 – Barrister Maria Steen says all barristers believe there to be no legal reality of the prospect of a prosecution brought under the 1861 rules, once a doctor acts in good faith. If it were thought necessary to allay the fears of the medical community, then it may be possible to amend the 1861 laws to explicitly include a ‘good faith’ defence for doctors.
If a law deals with taking an innocent life, that law needs to be justified. This can be done under current medical practice, but if we talk about enacting a law that intentionally takes an innocent life, we need an even stronger justification for doing so. How can one agree with taking the life of an innocent child, Steen says, when its only crime is to have existed at all?

Sarky

Who the hell let Mullen out of his box?

Nodin

Sarky wrote: »

Who the hell let Mullen out of his box?

The Committee For The Abolition Of The Seanad possibly.

Obliq

And yet again : 13.48 – Maria Steen, wittering on and on.

Clearly the woman was not invited to speak as a panelist - Ronan begged with an even more obsequious manner than usual, and suddenly she stole the show. :mad: