Abortion Discussion

Deleted User wrote: »

From Prime Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXs9rK0QBeU

I this clip odd. That objectionable woman was introduced as a legal adviser, but it would seem that she thinks she is some kind medical professional...

MrP

MrPudding wrote: »

I this clip odd. That objectionable woman was introduced as a legal adviser, but it would seem that she thinks she is some kind medical professional...

MrP

Does anyone know what obligation RTE are under in this area? If that was another medical report, surely they would just have the expert in the field commenting on his own at the end, without the need to provide a counterpoint.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I think the correct response here is "I double dog dare you". And if he refuses to treat her, it's lawyer time.

She has found another dr, as for lodging a complaint, it's one of things which will become a public matter, which is problematic for many women.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Isn't it amazing that balance provisions are only in play when rich white men are funding the fringe side?

To use a non-abortion example, the global warming deniers get media exposure way in excess of what the legitimacy of their case would demand, simply because a lot of big businesses and billionaires prefer an extra 10% profit now over their grandkids being able to breathe.

It comes down to the size of a person's or groups or institutions legal war chest.
If you have the money to bring a case to the high court you can cause the cost of 50 to a 100 grand to the other party before it ever sees the inside of a courtroom.

So to avoid that sort of expense and impact on legal indemnity insurance it's amazing what will be done.

Nodin wrote: »

More shit flying towards the fan.....

"Ms Y, the asylum seeker who unsuccessfully sought an abortion after arriving in Ireland pregnant as a result of alleged rape, was arrested in Liverpool five weeks before her baby was born by Caesarean section, The Irish Times has learned.

She was held by police for more than 11 hours after being arrested for illegally entering the UK from Ireland on July 1st last. She is believed to have travelled by ferry to Liverpool. Ms Y found out she was pregnant on April 4th this year, shortly after arriving in Ireland on March 28th. "

I don't know what to say. How can this be mere incompetence, when it not only doesn't figure in official (Irish!) records, but doesn't even seem to have been referred to by anyone interviewed for the draft report?

It surely shines a new light on the true reasons behind the "investigation" and what it was really set up to do.

Separately, from a purely human point of view, the thought of that poor girl, barely 18, arrested for illegal entry and not knowing what effect that might have on her request for asylum in Ireland, with less than 30€ in her possession, makes me feel like weeping for her. And for Ireland. What have we become, to do that to someone?

Absolam wrote: »

It certainly makes you wonder if the UK authorities did make any report to, or engage with, the HSE or DOJ at all, or did they just decide to put her back on a boat and leave her as someone else's problem. Which isn't necessarily incompetence, but thoughtless at least. The very fact that she was arrested at Birkenhead is interesting enough given the Common Travel Area lack of document checks, but perhaps she was particularly remarkable for some reason.

Certainly agree that there are many many questions to be answered here.
Your suggestion that she was just put back on the boat without informing Irish authorities seems implausible. How did she get back through the Irish customs, she wasn't an Irish national.
UK police say they confiscated two ID documents from her, so would they have given them back without some check up with their Irish counterparts as to whether or not they were genuine?

volchitsa wrote: »

Your suggestion that she was just put back on the boat without informing Irish authorities seems implausible. How did she get back through the Irish customs, she wasn't an Irish national.

She was accompanied by the Irish authorities???

Absolam wrote: »

and the immigration services simply had no reason to inform the HSE about it.

No...they wouldn't have had to inform the HSE if she was travelling with them, would they?

Never heard of the HSE bringing children in their care for abortions in the UK? No? Why not?

.....Because it would cause uproar, not because it doesn't happen.

(and I am assuming that in this case they brought this poor misfortunate refugee who was in their care and they couldn't manage to blag her a way through the UK port authorities - she was turned back, where probably 100's of pregnant Irish kids ACCOMPANIED by the HSE have not been)

Absolam wrote: »

Well, given that she was travelling in the CTA, there probably weren't any document checks on foot passengers, which is one of the reasons her arrest seems so unusual.

I wonder if they do routine checks. I've had my passport checked on a coach to NI and when I travelled to UK on the ferry (in Holyhead, about 2010/early 2011). I say me, but the whole coach was checked.

Shrap wrote: »

I have no evidence for it. I am assuming.

So when you said she was accompanied by the Irish authorities you were literally just making that up?

Shrap wrote: »

I am taking an educated guess.

What education, precisely, is the guess based on?

Shrap wrote: »

And I don't care much if you don't agree that my reading between the lines/filling in the gaps is right or wrong.

That's perfectly fine, though it would be great to know which lines you're reading between, and which gaps you're filling in.

Shrap wrote: »

It's quite well known that the HSE has accompanied pregnant girls in their care for abortions FAR more often than the 6 documented cases that the HSE admits/documents.

Is it? When you say quite well known, do you mean by people reading between the lines and filling in the gaps, or is it actually known by people who possess and can present actual evidence of what they know?

Shrap wrote: »

Ms.Y was in their care at the time that she requested an abortion, yes? Yes. At the time she clearly was in Liverpool? Hmmm.....I'm saying yes. At the time she came back? Yes. See?

I do see. You're saying that because she was in their care they must have taken her to Liverpool. Do you think they took her everywhere she went whilst she was in their care? Or just this one particular place which was outside both their remit and jurisdiction? Isn't it a little incredible that they might go to all this trouble to bring her to Britain for an abortion, but not help her apply to the Department of Justice for travel papers allowing her to leave and re-enter Ireland, and separately apply to the British Embassy for a visa, which would ensure they would not need to abandon her when she was arrested for illegally entering the country, and then need to ensure they weren't mentioned in subsequent reports? Or is it at all possible that the HSE may not be aware of, or responsible for, every movement made by every asylum seeker under their care?

Shrap wrote: »

You guys were speculating as to how on earth all those solicitors/care workers etc. were just on-hand there and then at the port authority within 12 hrs. and I'm making an educated guess as to how that happened.

So what education is the guess based on?

Shrap wrote: »

The HSE interestingly has not recorded this incident in the draft report into her care. Because it's clear that there is more to this than meets the eye, I'm putting 2 + 2 together and making the usual *pass the sick bucket* Irish solution to an Irish problem.

Right. But if you remove your own assumption that the HSE bizarrely involved itself in a attempt to illegally transport the girl across an international border, you're left with the somewhat simpler possibility that the HSE didn't record the incident in the draft report because it wasn't aware of it.

Shrap wrote: »

Bet I'm proved right as the investigation continues.

What are the chances that if you're not, you'll believe it was a cover up?

Shrap wrote: »

you will find that investigations into this have already turned up a distinct lack of paper trail/proof of this happening despite verbal evidence to the contrary (from people afraid of the consequences of speaking up publicly). Are you in the business of only believing something if it's a matter of public record?

Well, I'll probably give more credibility to a matter of public record than 'bodgers' report of Sinéad O’Sheas account of a 'someone who once worked with Dublin VEC' who had heard of two or three terminations taking place, and who claimed to have helped with one. Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald statement to the Dail is a matter of public record for instance, and it doesn't indicate a lack of paper trail or a lack of proof when the HSE does get involved; it demonstrates an acknowledged process was in place involving psychiatric assessments and court orders. Yet it doesn't rise to a substantive reason for you to state, as a fact, that Miss Y was accompanied by Irish authorities, when you only had your own supposition to go on?

Shrap wrote: »

Maybe they did apply to the Dept. of Justice and got her travel papers. All officially unofficial of course. Don't you think this happens? Incredible as it would be, it's a believable measure of the hypocrisy in this country.

So, maybe they accompanied her, and maybe they officially unofficially got her travel papers, which she maybe lost before being arrested, and maybe when she was arrested they forgot to mention that there were legitimate papers which they could produce given time, so instead one of them who turned out to be a solicitor tried to persuade UK immigration that UK services had a duty of care to her? You're right, it does seem incredible that such a bizarre sequence of events might then believably be attributed to the hypocrisy in this country.

Shrap wrote: »

It doesn't say which care authorities in the article, nor does it say who's "duty of care" she was in at the time.

It doesn't say anything at all about Irish authorities being involved in the article; it was you who proposed that Irish authorities were involved.

Shrap wrote: »

Plus, the HSE would seem to be quite used to not including any mention of their accompanying pregnant girls abroad for abortions in any reports.

Which reports should they have been included in that they weren't? They were quite obviously included in the report they gave to the Children’s Minister, who categorically stated that they acted within the law. The very fact that Deputy Timmons wasn't asking if it happens, but rather the numbers involved, shows it wasn't any sort of secret.

Shrap wrote: »

I would imagine that a HSE worker has gone above and beyond their official duties here and tried to help the girl go to the UK for an abortion in a semi-official but off the record capacity.

So, beyond imagination, is there any basis for the assertion? Has a HSE worker ever before been known to attempt to illegally transport a non-national across the border in a 'semi-official' capacity? Why do you think on this occasion a HSE worker would be acting semi-officially, above and beyond their official duties, rather than officially and in line with their duties, as HSE workers involved with such travel did before?

Shrap wrote: »

Yes, that's true. But I certainly don't discount the possibility that there is yet more farcical hypocrisy to come out in this case, and I certainly don't think my assuming that the HSE may have conducted itself in such a bizarre manner is unbelievable. She was hardly gone on the ferry to England on her own, nor explained her case to UK officials on her own without a word of English.

Well, firstly, you haven't demonstrated that any farcical hypocrisy has yet come out in this case; you've just assumed it. I would hope it's possible that more factual information will come out in this case, certainly at least with regard to how she came to be arrested traveling for an abortion she didn't have the means to pay for, and how such a ready appeal was made to the UKs duty of care.

Shrap wrote: »

Similar to the chances of you believing that the right thing to do would have been if Ms.Y had been allowed an abortion as early as she asked for one.

No chance whatsoever then? Hmmm.

Shrap wrote: »

Ah jaysus wept. A sentence with "??" at the end of it is not stated as a fact, but a supposition. I still like my theory. It fits with what I think of this sorry systemic hypocrisy that even the state uses in order to make it look like abortion doesn't exist as an answer to crisis pregnancies in this country.

Considering what DID happen to the poor girl at the hands of this state, the scenario I'm suggesting is positively it's only redeeming feature, if indeed HSE personnel tried their best to get her to the UK.

Before your brain explodes with Absolam's utterly pointless fake questions, I just want to say that while of course your suggestion is speculation, it is certainly plausible speculation.

And of course the fact that the draft report from the HSE doesn't appear to be worth the paper it's written on in terms of clarifying matters, your speculation is probably at least as close to the truth as the HSE report is so far anyway. They haven't even interviewed the most important person in the whole series of events, Ms Y.

So I just wanted to thank you for suggesting something that hadn't occurred to me and that certainly seems worth keeping in mind.

When the mention of Y being in Liverpool (after her pregnancy was diagnosed) was made here, I wondered how she could get back into the republic without being spotted, if she was detained on the far side with her documents temporarily held by Police. I'd imagine that some form of contact would have been made between the two police forces here and there about her arrest/detention as she is a foreign national to both countries and they operate the checks on them, before she was released from custody. If she WAS assisted/accompanied by HSE personnel in travelling to/from Liverpool that might explain how she got to and from so apparently freely. I'd imagine that the HSE would be upset if any mention of it, or it's staff, being allegedly involved in such inter-national movement were to be publicly discussed. I'd imagine that Iona and other like parties would be very upset at the very idea of a state agency working to procure "alternative terminations" abroad. All of mine above is based on Y's alleged travel to/from Liverpool and not to be taken as an excuse to put irrelevant questions to me. TTFN.