8th amendment referendum part 3 - Mod note and FAQ in post #1

Moiratat wrote: »

This thread is becoming increasingly upsetting for me, every time I try and ask someone on the no side for their opinion on what they would have done, it is simply ignored each time.
Then they complain about a lack of respect, I have not been the least bit disrespectful to anyone in this thread.
Ignoring people isn't respectful, the one answer I received was someone saying my story didn't make sense, how is that respectful to anyone?!

Every time I pose this question to someone it nearly brings me to tears and to be simply ignored is deeply insulting.

Chin up Moiratat. Once the Yes vote is confirmed on 25 May the anti-women voters will move on to their next target. Women will finally get the medical care they deserve in this country and hopefully someone in a situation like yours in the futurewill have easier solutions.

As for their next target - My bet is they will start going after 4/5 year old children from minority/no religion families and think its ok for them to continue to not get equal education opportunities in this country due to the baptism barrier which they will defend - ironic if you think about it.

I didnt know eotr was still around. Blast from the past.

Serious question from a newbie to the thread.

Who regulates or checks election posters for factual accuracy? Is there anyone responsible for this? If not, surely this is something for refcom to look at in future.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Or trying, furiously, for weeks, to catch up through all three threads. Like me.

Phew...

It's ****ing tough isn't it! I try to read every post, you think I'm only a few hours behind, step away for a bit or go to bed, come back and.... Arrrggghhh! 500 new posts.

MonsterCookie wrote: »

Serious question from a newbie to the thread.

Who regulates or checks election posters for factual accuracy? Is there anyone responsible for this? If not, surely this is something for refcom to look at in future.

There's no regulator for the content of political posters or ads. The referendum commission or Standards in Public Office have no remit, and the Advertising Standards body has said it doesn't deal with complaints about political advertising.

Some media outlets are fact checking them, but in terms of a state body, there's nobody responsible.

Given the decisions that Facebook and Google have made in the last few days, I think politicians realise they're going to have to step up and doing something about this for the future. Don't ask me when that will happen though.

RobertKK wrote: »

It is in the proposed legislation. Dr Boylan said the doctor would believe the women.

No, six months is NOT in the proposed legislation.


The proposed legislation allows for abortion, in limited circumstances, up to viability (the time when the child can delivered and hopefully survive).


Viability is generally considered to be about 23 or 24 weeks.
Six months is about 26 weeks.


To recap; the (proposed) legislation mentions 'viability', as assessed by two doctors. It does not mention 6 months or 26 weeks or any number of weeks.
Viability is generally agreed to be 2 or 3 weeks less than 6 months.
If the pregnancy has passed viability then the child will be delivered and given every support to survive.


Say it with me: The legislation does not mention six months.

B0jangles wrote: »

MonsterCookie wrote: »

Serious question from a newbie to the thread.

Who regulates or checks election posters for factual accuracy? Is there anyone responsible for this? If not, surely this is something for refcom to look at in future.

Open to correct on this , but as far as I know, no-one is - the advertising standards people have said its not their problem and I don't think there's anyone else.

It’s a big bug bear of mine. It’s a difficult enough topic for people to decide on without being subjected to willfully misleading advertising.

MonsterCookie wrote: »

Serious question from a newbie to the thread.

Who regulates or checks election posters for factual accuracy? Is there anyone responsible for this? If not, surely this is something for refcom to look at in future.

Noone really. The government have pissed about and not dealt, with it in virtually every iteration so far.

It went on in MarRef, it went on in Lisbon 1 & 2, and every referendum I remember, I'm 35.

If it takes Facebook and Google to do it online, I'll hope it'll follow on here, with transparency of funding as well. But given how successive governments have pissed about and kicked important issues down the road, I'll not hold my breathe.

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

Well, unfortunately reading the last several pages does nothing to backup that position at all, and it is an echo chamber, and there is baiting posts and there is abusive posts but apparently all bets are off and all is forgiven because its an emotive subject. I hope the vote goes your way on the 25th but I absolutely stand by my opinion that this thread is a disgrace.

All the best.

Ive been following all three threads but havent posted. Below are some of the notable 'bad' pro-life points

• women who seek an abortion when their lives arent at risk should be made undergo surgery to remove their wombs after the abortion
• stating over and over again that the Miss P case (the brain dead women who was physically rotting and decomposing but kept on life support) was nothing but a deliberately orchestrated publicity stunt by pro-choice (absolutely vile and went on for pages). FYI, the same person who posted that over and over again then began feigning outrage about an imaginary slight against his nephew and family
• forcing 'lower class' people to go through a crisis pregnancy was good for them because it gave them the 'jolt' they needed to go out and get a job, thus aiding social mobility
• woman in pre-1990's Ireland where marital rape was legal, contraception banned and so on had nobody but themselves to blame for being pregnant so should take the consequences (wasnt actually related directly to the 8th, bizarre point that the poster was trying to make)
• countless posts about how women should keep their knees together
• couples in relationships should engage in abstinence until after after the woman has gone through the menopause if they dont want a pregnancy
• if a woman doesnt want to be pregnant then all she has to do is use contraceptive (I dont know how many times someone said that and would completely ignore that contraception isnt 100% effective)
• repeated posts about how the new legislation would legalise abortion on demand up to 24 (or maybe it was 26) weeks with no supporting data
• women who are raped and want an abortion should be interrogated before a 'rape committee' of three people who (after the raped woman in question discloses the details of the rape she underwent to these people to seek their permission to have an abortion) would then decide if she could have one
• refusing to acknowledge the 8th had any role to play in Savita's death and engaging in disgusting cognitive dissonance to peddle it
• a bunch of other stuff about how women having abortion causes increased Muslim immigration and will lead to Sharia Law

Theyre just some of the ones Ive recalled off the top of my head here, there are plenty more. The frustrating thing is that the people posting the above will usually come in, make some of the above statements or something else, spam pages while ignoring counter points to them (the contraception one being the easiest example), disappear and resurface making the same point;

-Pro-Life Poster: If a woman doesnt want to be pregnant all she has to do is use contraception. Its her own fault for being wreckless
-Pro-Choice: Contraception isnt 100% effective, here are stats, here are facts, here is proof...
-Pro-Life Poster resurfaces a while later: Shure if she didnt want to be pregnant she shouldve just used contraceptives

-Pro-Life Poster: Savita died from sepsis, nothing to do with the 8th
-Pro-Choice: She asked for an abortion and was denied treatment because of the 8th, this lead to the sepsis, the doctors hands were tied and they couldnt treat here, here are the reports and statements..
-Pro-Life Poster resurfaces a while later: Savita died because the medical staff were careless and nothing else

Rinse and repeat over and over. I think that that is where a huge amount of frustration comes from. Im obviously pro-choice, but Id echo an earlier poster in that pleas advise (while I dont agree with his/her position) tends to debate the topic and have good exchanges to read, most of the other pro-life posters post in the above manner. It has been frustrating as a reader of the thread, so cant imagine what its like trying to engage and debate with those people

My take on it.

Boulevardier wrote: »

I recently saw a tweet from a woman undergoing chemo. She said that before each round of chemo starts she must have a pregnancy test, and if it is positive then she does not get the chemo. If she refuses to take the test, then again, no treatment.

I was appalled at this. Is it applied to all women of child-bearing age, and if so, is this situation due to the 8th amendment?


I have had misgivings on aspects of this referendum, buy if the answer to the above is yes, then there goes any chance of my voting no.

This is a copy of a post from the “in her shoes” FB page

The No campaign in the imminent referendum argue that pregnancy has no impact on cancer treatment. Sadly, I know from recent personal experience that this is not true. My wife, Paula, was diagnosed with cancer in July 2016. As she awaited the biopsy results our GP advised optimism, saying some cancers are slow-growing and actually not as serious as people fear. The lab results, however, were as devastating as the original diagnosis. Paula had an aggressive, fast-spreading, notoriously difficult to treat form of the disease, with survival rates much lower than average. Paula's oncologist swung into action and so began life on the cancer whirlwind, which did not abate in intensity for a full year.

First up were two weeks of scans. Because of the abnormality of the cancer cells forming the tumours, and their aggressive nature, Paula was automatically Stage 3. The purpose of the fortnight of diagnostic testing was to determine if the cancer had already spread to other parts of her body, which would make her stage 4, and obviously alter the approach to treatment. So we spent most of our time on the road or in the scariest wings of hospitals for most of August, not yet knowing if Paula had Stage 3 cancer, which was potentially curable, or Stage 4, which was terminal. Many of these scans could be safely performed upon a pregnant woman - the levels of radiation in x-rays are too low to harm the fetus, MRI scans are generally safe as they do not use ionizing radiation, and CT scans (which are incredibly important in determining if cancer has spread) are safe to use on areas of the body that won't involve the fetus being directly exposed to radiation. This does mean that a lead shield is used to cover the abdomen, so the picture is incomplete, but almost all doctors and patients will be happy to proceed with this small part of the puzzle missing. With some types of cancer, however, including Paula's, there is a serious risk of the cancer having spread to the bone and this can be difficult to detect from a CT scan.

With this in mind, Paula was sent to Sligo Hospital for nuclear imaging. This test involved being injected with a radiopharmaceutical, which would take about two hours to work its way around her body, the actual scan being performed after that interval. From the moment she was injected until about 12 hours later, Paula was informed that she would be radioactive. Having signed that she was not pregnant, she was further instructed that when she left the hospital to await the scan she should take care to avoid all pregnant women and children under the age of 12, and that she should follow this same advice for the following 12 hours. We went for lunch and it was a slightly surreal experience - when you are told to watch out for pregnant women, suddenly there are pregnant women everywhere. When we returned home after a long day it was to a house without our children, who stayed with my sister as the 12 hours would not elapse until the small hours. Paula found it upsetting not to see them, as any time out of hospitals was precious at this point, her not knowing how much time she might have left.

The first piece of good news was that the cancer had not spread beyond the primary site and nearby lymph nodes. With this information in hand, the first thing Paula's oncologist said to her was that the programme of chemotherapy would be particularly tough and it was important to proceed urgently. We were initially confused, thinking the first step would surely be surgery to remove the tumours. But no, the oncologist explained, adjuvant chemotherapy (chemo before surgery) would greatly improve Paula's chances. In a case of pregnancy, it is universally accepted that chemotherapy is unsafe during the first trimester. Chemotherapy drugs are used to destroy cancer cells, but they are unable to differentiate between cancerous cells and healthy cells, all are attacked equally. This creates a high risk of birth defects occurring if chemotherapy is used during the first 3 months of pregnancy.

The only entirely safe treatment to pursue during this time is surgery. The problem is that tackling some cancers, including Paula's, with a surgery-first approach, before the tumours have been shrunken by chemotherapy, can actually provoke microscopic cancer cells to spread more rapidly. An even more worrying feature of the surgery-first approach is that oncologists have found over the past decades that some women who have been apparently cured of their breast cancer through surgery have seen their cancers return, months or years later, with the discovery of signs of spread of the disease to other parts of the body, such as the bones, liver, lungs or brain. These secondary cancers must have been present, as microscopic, undetectable seedlings of tumour, before the primary cancer was removed. The primary cancer could not have sent off metastases to other parts of the body after it had been taken away. Commencing treatment with chemotherapy means that these undetectable seedlings can be destroyed before they have a chance to take root and develop into tumours that will eventually kill the patient. I believe this should be explained to women who are in the first trimester of pregnancy and who have been diagnosed with certain cancers. They should be given the choice as to whether they wish to proceed with surgery first, protecting their pregnancy, or whether they wish to maximize their chances of long-term survival by considering adjuvant chemotherapy. Most, I believe, will decide to continue with their pregnancy - the maternal bond being, I think, the strongest force within humanity - but the decision should not be made for them. The fact that chemo is unsafe during the first trimester was underscored throughout the entire six months of Paula's chemotherapy, with a pregnancy test being performed before any session could begin. During the 2nd and 3rd trimesters it is safe for doctors to give several types of chemotherapy without apparent risk to the fetus. But even this is not a straightforward as it might seem. Prior to 2016 I thought, naively, that chemotherapy was a single treatment. But there are many different types of chemotherapy, and within each type there are a bewildering number of chemotherapy drugs. Cytotoxic chemotheapy alone, for instance, puts at the disposal of the oncologist more than a hundred different drugs. These drugs can then be used in different combinations with other chemo drugs to produce different effects on cancer cells. Some of these drugs, usually the more toxic, must never be considered in a case where the patient is pregnant, as they have the ability to pass through the placenta, which is the natural barrier between the woman and the baby. This has the effect of slightly limiting the palette at the disposal of the oncologist. It may not be critical, but I think most of us in recent weeks are moving towards a position of believing that patients should have all the facts explained to them.

Paula's chemotherapy involved high doses of very toxic drugs, on a weekly basis instead of the more usual every two or three weeks. During the second session, Paula suffered a seizure which brought the session to an abrupt end. Despite her fear, Paula's oncologist advised returning to the hospital for another attempt the next morning - there was no time to lose. We were usually the first people to arrive in the chemo ward at 9am, and the last to leave at 6pm, members of staff having already gone home by the time Paula was unhooked. We got used to seeing other patients come and go throughout the day. Despite all that, when the time finally arrived for surgery, it was a shocking discovery that many of the cancer cells were still alive. That's how difficult it is to kill cancer. After surgery, Paula proceeded to radiotherapy. The consultant explained to her that this was incredibly important for ensuring that the cancer had less chance of recurring.Radiation therapy can harm the fetus in all trimesters, as it uses high-energy x-rays to destroy cancer cells. Generally its use is completely avoided during pregnancy. However, I met many patients whose oncologists considered that their best course of treatment was a combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy combined from the outset - that was the approach that would maximize their chances of survival. For one whole year, in fact, almost everyone I talked to was a cancer patient, cancer survivor, relative of cancer patient, cancer doctor, or cancer nurse. One cancer nurse with decades of experience said something to me one afternoon which I found particularly disturbing. She said that when she began her career, almost all her patients were elderly. Then there were more middle-aged patients.

And now, she said, the patients are getting younger and younger. Just that morning I had been chatting to a young woman in her twenties who was coming to terms with her diagnosis. In all likelihood, it seems, this trend will continue, and more younger cancer patients means more women of reproductive age having to battle this disease, and it also means that Ireland has to adapt now for an increase in the numbers of pregnant cancer patients. We learned quickly during the summer of 2016 that with a diagnosis of cancer, speed is of the essence, it can be the difference between life and death. There is no time for Ryanair flights to English hospitals for terminations in the first trimester so that chemotherapy-first can be the safest option; there is no time for arranging such travel. Had any time been lost during those terrible first months of Paula's battle with cancer in 2016, it is highly likely that she would not be alive this morning (out for a stroll in the sun!) and our two children would therefore be motherless. If you have taken the time to read this I thank you for your patience and hope that you might even consider voting Yes on May 25th.

F**k sake
https://twitter.com/Deisesupes/status/994610065503145984