It's not just "for some". There were two main No campaigns in 2018, both of them pro-conservative-Catholic organisations. I don't know why some people find it necessary to deny observable facts. If religion is your motivating force, fine, but own it.
and that is correct for many individuals.
for some absolutely religion will be the driving force and that's their perogative.
Clowns. But yeah we keep being told that oppostion to abortion is not driven by religion...
They singled out Ms O’Neill and Sinn Fein Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP Michelle Gildernew for criticism.
Let him that hath understanding observe the name of the beast: for it is the name of a woman; and her name is Michelle.
The report about the break-in at the abortion clinic mentioned theft from the clinic. I wont make any conjectures on what allegedly found to be missing from the clinic after the break-in.
Five foetuses have been discovered in a Washington home reportedly belonging to an anti-abortion activist, police say.
Lauren Handy, 28, is a leader of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) group and describes herself as a "Catholic anarchist".
Police said they were investigating a "potential bio-hazard material" when the foetuses were found.
Ms Handy was separately indicted on Wednesday for forcing entry into an abortion clinic in 2020.
She was photographed outside the address on Wednesday as investigators removed items from the basement in bags and coolers.
She told local news outlet WUSA9 that "people would freak out when they heard" what was inside the containers being seized.
Just to cut off the "Teh EU forced us to have abortions" angle before it can begin, the Irish government is hosting the consultation on an EU website for the sake of convenience - any public body in the EU can use that site for surveys - but the review isn't anything to do with the EU.
Reminder - today's the final day to submit comments to the EU.
Please make a submission on the abortion legislation review. Closing date is close of business on Friday April 1st.
My submission is below
...................
Q3(a). To what extent do you agree that the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 has achieved what it set out to do?
Answer
Strongly Disagree
Q3(b). Please provide detail / evidence to support your answer
3200 character(s) maximum
Almost 90% of GPs and half of maternity hospitals are refusing to provide abortion services.
The 3 day wait is a needless and medically unnecessary barrier to accessing abortion, particularly for those who must travel due to their local GPs and hospitals not participating. It creates needless additional difficulties in relation to travel, cost, employment, and childcare.
The interpretation by doctors of the 12 week calculation is incorrect - it should be up to 12 weeks 6 days not 12 weeks 0 days, i.e. any date less than 13 weeks is 12 weeks.
In practice there are huge barriers in place once a pregnancy is, or is suspected to be, over 10 weeks. Severe difficulties arise where a pregnancy is close to 12 weeks but a dating scan is requested which may delay the practitioner's decision until after 12 weeks, thus denying a woman her legal right to an abortion within 12 weeks under Irish law.
There are also many documented cases of fatal foetal abnormality which have been refused abortion in Ireland and the women concerned have been forced to travel to the UK to receive the care they should have received in Ireland.
Q4(a). Are there parts of the Act which, in your opinion, have not operated well?
Yes
Q4(b). If yes, please let us know which section(s) of the Act, and details of the issue(s) it is causing.
Please provide detail / evidence to support your answer.
Section 7. The review has been delayed. It should have been completed within 3 years of the commencement of the Act i.e. by 1/1/2022.
Section 11. Many documented cases of "fatal but not fatal enough" abnormalities where the foetus has no real prospect of survival but nonetheless an abortion under S.11 has been refused.
Section 12.1. The 12 weeks is counted as 12 weeks since last menstrual period. This is nonsense as (a) the date of LMP may not be known accurately (b) some women do not menstruate yet remain fertile (c) fertilization typically cannot occur until 2 weeks post LMP therefore our 12 week abortion law is in reality a 10 week abortion law.
Section 12.3. The 3 day wait is medically unneccessary, causes issues in relation to travel, employment, and childcare, and is intended to shame women. Irish law does not accept that a woman is capable of making a considered decision about her health before consulting her GP.
Section 12.4. A woman may be denied her right to legal abortion due to delays caused by a doctor's request for a dating scan or due to other factors outside of the woman's control.
Section 12.5. Dating a pregnancy for the purposes of abortion from typically two weeks before fertilization occurred is nonsensical and diminishes the rights of women to legal abortion in Ireland at what is still a very early stage of pregnancy.
Section 22.3. In practice this provision is unenforceable and a woman in such a situation has no means to vindicate her rights under the law to a legal abortion. She has no option other than to seek a consultation with another practitioner, incurring further difficulties in relation to travel, cost, employment, and childcare, and may then find herself beyond the 12 week limit.
Section 23.1. Criminalizing abortion on the basis of an arbitrary time limit, where the duration of the pregnancy may be impossible to know accurately, understandably leads to an abundance of caution among practitioners, thus denying women their legal right to an abortion under Irish law. Abortion should be decriminalised.
Section 23.5. The penalty of imprisonment up to 14 years, and/or an unlimited fine, is grossly excessive and causes practitioners to deny women their legal right to an abortion under Irish law. Abortion should be decriminalised. If it is not decriminalised, the grossly excessive penalties must be greatly reduced.
Section 26. Half of maternity hospitals are refusing to provide abortion services despite this section obliging them to do so. No action has been taken or penalty imposed against the hospitals denying Irish women their right to an abortion under Irish law.
Q6. Are there any further comments you would like to make on the operation of the legislation?
Please provide detail / evidence to support your answer, where possible.
With 89% of GPs ahd half of maternity hospitals still refusing to participate, the legislation is not operating well and is denying Irish women their legal rights. Many Irish women are still having to travel to the UK for an abortion despite falling within the very restrictive parameters of the legislation here.
Q7. Do you have any comments about services provided under the Act?
Even within the very restrictive parameters set out in this Act for legal abortion, it is a failure with 89% of GPs not participating and half of maternity hospitals refusing, without penalty, to provide abortion services despite being legally required to do so. The scope of the legislation must be extended to fully vindicate the rights of Irish woman to a legal abortion in Ireland without being forced to travel to another country. The restrictive time limit must be increased, and abortion rights extended to non-fatal foetal abnormalities.
Edited to add my comment:
It's good for the women of NI that the Westminster government will do this (if they indeed do) but they shouldn't have to. It's yet more proof that Stormont is just a joke of a parliament really, where religious dogmatism and hatred still has a great sway, where they can't be relied upon to do anything, and where it's far easier to obstruct and block an initiative than it is to get anything useful done.
According to todays online headlines issue of the Irish Times [UK Government will "intervene directly" to ensure abortion services are available in North], Brandon Lewis said regulations were being prepared which would give London the necessary powers..... That's as much as the I/T item reveals. I'm unable, due to the I/T blocking any lifting of its property, to provide a link to the article but that won't stop people from using the net to look for the item above on the I/T site.
Some interesting recent articles in the Examiner:
Re the terms of reference for the review, I doubt it'll matter much at the end of the day. The final decision is a political one (and has likely already been made, in broad outline), and IMO the review process is largely there to give Donnelly and the government cover for the changes to the abortion regime they have decided in advance they wish to make.
And seemingly underscoring this
Legislation allowing for safe access zones for abortion services will make up part of an 18-month plan for women's health to be launched by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly on Tuesday.
seemingly entirely separately from the abortion law review process
One in seven providers of abortion care in the Republic has experienced a verbal threat or attack related to their work, according to research that highlights psychological challenges for health staff involved.
After more liberal abortion legislation was implemented in January 2019, there was, quite rightly, a focus on the patient experience, says Prof Mary Higgins, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital and associate professor at University College Dublin. But she was one of a research team who also wanted to find out what it was like for the clinicians.
The majority, like herself, grew up and trained in this country where abortion was not legal and they never thought they would be providing abortion care, she says. “Then suddenly you are providing it within a couple of months.”
A study, led by PhD student Brendan Dempsey and published in the Contraception journal last year, found 15 per cent of providers who answered the questionnaire had experienced a verbal threat or attack related to their abortion work (compared to 51 per cent in the US). People who work in hospitals had a higher rate of stigma. In the case of an early medical abortion at community level, Higgins says, a woman being treated is one of many patients attending a GP.
She takes the medication home to have the abortion in her own home, so not only is the GP anonymous to a certain extent as a provider but “they don’t see the process that is involved”.
Whereas if you take the other extreme of abortion care, says Higgins, looking after somebody who is at 20 weeks’ gestation of a much wanted baby, that turns out to have a fatal abnormality, is a very different scenario for clinicians. First, “you have to go through the process of due diligence – does this meet the criteria? – which can take a couple of weeks, as you need genetic testing and ultrasounds”.
Then the woman is coming in for a medical termination. “You are giving her the tablet and she is labouring. You are seeing her pain and distress – both emotional and physical – and you’re trying to take away both of them by giving her support and analgesia.
“Then you see the baby being born, which, if it has internal abnormalities, will look perfect and that has been shown to be very difficult for staff.”
What is coming out of the research is the value for staff of being able to talk about this and having good support and teamwork.
“Our psychiatrists put it wonderfully,” says Higgins. “One of the greatest bonds is between the mother and the child . . . What we are being asked to do in abortion care is to breach that bond and do something that is very uncomfortable.”
People who provide that care are still willing to do it, she says, but: “They need the space to talk about how difficult it is.”
Surely it's the experiences of GPs we should be hearing about here, they are literally the front line of our system.
No doubt it was easier for certain consultants here to wash their hands of the problem and have their FFA patients go to the UK
Viva Colombia! Ireland should cop on about their regime. 12 weeks ffs...
We'll see. It didn't work out great with the last mother and baby homes report.
Meanwhile in Colombia, abortion has been decriminalised up to 24 weeks.
Judges on Colombia’s constitutional court voted on Monday to decriminalise abortion until 24 weeks of gestation, the court said in a statement, in a victory for abortion rights groups which sued to have the procedure removed from the penal code.
The decision adds Colombia to a list of Latin American countries that have recently liberalised abortion access, including Mexico and Ecuador.
Abortion was partially legalised in Colombia under a 2006 court decision which allowed it only in cases of rape, fatal foetal deformity and health of the woman, without any time limits.
Under Monday’s ruling, backed by five of nine judges, women will not be prosecuted for seeking abortions up to 24 weeks of gestation, after which the procedure will only be allowed under the original three conditions.
So things are moving a bit. Not someone I'm familiar with but I suppose it doesn't matter who the 'independent chair' is as long as long as they are genuinely independent and competent.
^^
Just copy/pasted and sent to my TD's, including both Healeys-Rae.
Letter in today's IT:
Sir, – As the doctor appointed by the minister for health in 2018 to advise the HSE on the implementation of the Termination of Pregnancy Act, I share the serious concerns about the forthcoming review of the legislation and its operation expressed by Orla O’Connor and the National Women’s Council of Ireland (“Donnelly is dragging his heels on abortion review”, Opinion & Analysis, December 15th).
I agree that an independent chair should be appointed without further delay, and critically that the review’s terms of reference must be framed to ensure that if the evidence suggests the need for legislative and policy changes, these can be brought forward.
I would highlight four areas in particular that require careful attention to ensure that unnecessary systemic barriers are not limiting access to legal abortion services.
The uneven provision of the service in only 10 of the State’s 19 maternity units needs to be addressed.
The three-day period waiting period is patronising and unnecessary and should be removed.
Parents’ concerns about access to termination in cases of foetal abnormality may mandate legislative review to eliminate the need for unnecessary or unreasonable travel abroad to access appropriate care.
Finally, a hitherto overlooked serious systemic barrier to access is the anomaly in the HSE guidelines which limits the definition of 12 weeks of pregnancy to 84 days from the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period. In universal medical practice, a woman is 12 weeks pregnant until she is 13 weeks pregnant. Twelve weeks of pregnancy is 90 days, not 84, and this is clear and correctly stated in all other HSE material relating to pregnancy.
My efforts in late 2018 to ensure that the correct medical definition of 12 weeks was included in the guidelines met with immovable resistance from within the Department of Health.
This novel definition of 12 weeks of pregnancy should be corrected without further delay. –
Yours, etc,
Dr PETER BOYLAN,
Dublin 6.
I don't see any evidence of that myself - especially with regard to abortions on ground of non-fatal disability. But these are the same people who regarded the "let's do the absolute minimum to implement the X case decision" POLDP Act in 2013 as "slippery slope", "floodgates" etc. and gave the very strong impression that they viewed it as more moral to let women die instead.
A poster on Irish Catholics boards, where I occassionally lurk to monitor thinking in those quarters😛, says "Stephen Donnelly's presentation of the "three-year review" makes it abundantly clear that it is based on the assumption that the aim is to have every abortion which involves travel to Britain take place in Ireland instead."
I myself suspect this is the drift of Donnelly's thinking, but I didn't see anything specific in his presentation of the review to confirm that. From what I observed he was keeping his cards close to his chest.
Yeah things have been getting incrementally worse in Poland over the last few years. The Abortion Support Network have extended their services to Poland - although our poor legislation means their work in Ireland is by no means done.
Not a fun time to be pregnant in Poland - where the populist administration there plans to require doctors to report pregnancies, births and miscarriages, allowing bean counters to figure out who might have had abortions. The plan has prompted Polish women to email photos of a range of personal items to the Polish ministry of health, together with messages to the effect that they're not pregnant.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/dec/03/poland-plans-to-set-up-register-of-pregnancies-to-report-miscarriages
Most of the H-R's wealth comes from public funds contracts. Plenty of questions there but no answers.
on a country wide basis i would agree.
but lets be fair, the local things that effect one on a day to day basis will for some take priority over issues that don't but which may exist country wide.
I'm not convinced that parish pump politics and political dynasties serve anyone well at this stage. There's a rather mafioso feel to the whole thing with more than one turkey involved.
the people of kerry are awake, they just have some different priorities to you and me and the dinisty deliver on them and while they continue to deliver they will keep being voted in.
It's the exact same BS playbook as used by the Irish "pro-life"rs paymasters in the US, just a couple of years behind.
Expect a "heartbeat bill" in about two years time.
Unless things drastically change in the Dail, none of them have a hope in hell of passing but that's not really the point for these showboaters, getting their name in the media and social media (oops) and associated with "the cause" is all that matters. It's about their own electoral prospects after all, like everything else the H-Rs do.
People of Kerry need to wake the f**k up. I suspect once a certain generation dies off the dynasty is f**ked.
I'm not being cynical here when I think they probably hope, as a starter, that some-one demand he/she be given proof that the pain relief drug doesn't have painful side effects on the feotus before a private members bill they suggested be voted on. It seems like a two-step dance routine the promoters of such a bill would hope for, a partner to step out of the wings with such a demand, seeking a rehash of the argument that the feotus has awareness of pain because it reacts to noise and other stimulations.
Only if it passes AFAIK
