It's not acceptable that consultants which are well-remunerated from the public purse can simply refuse to carry out part of their job.
Republicans in the US talk endlessly of their support for live births and something they refer to as "family values". The NYT looked into whether Republican-controlled states actually enact policies which support children and families, or whether Republicans tend, at the end of the day, to be hypocrites:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/upshot/abortion-bans-states-social-services.html
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the HSE works.
abortion services are Consultant ob-gyn led. Consultant Ob-Gyns are hard to recruit in the first instance. Even harder to find ones that do not have a conscientious objection to abortion and harder still to recruit outside such posts outside of Dublin. The articles that you link to reflect the objection issue - which is fundamentally no surprise given abortion was only legalised 4 years ago and given there remains deeply held difference of views, not just in the public but also in the medical profession. Would like to see your evidence that HSE abortion service decisions are based on RCC influence.
You only have to look at the wide range and large number of medical professional gaps in the Health System at the moment to understand that recruitment, especially of specialist posts, is extremely difficult. Abortion services are no different to other parts of the system, but there's never room for mature honest debate from either side in the abortion topic - everything appears to be a conspiracy.
But they're not doing that. Half of maternity hospitals do not provide abortions.
The HSE does choose the rate at which they implement it. One of the articles linked to the HSE establishing a committee in 2020 to address this. Well, that was a year after the legislation was in place (2 years post-referendum) and still nothing. Delay/obstruct/deny - the HSE/RCC way. Hoping we all forget it but we won't.
As always with issues like immigration or climate change the question arises: where are these supposedly disenfranchised traditional voters going to go if both FF and FG have gone over to the dark/liberal side? There are probably a fair few people alright who are broadly pro-choice but don't want any further liberalisation of the law; the question is are they bothered enough about the issue to change their vote over it?
I don't think there is enough time to long-finger the issue until the GE: the government either changes the law over the next year or so or announces it's the status quo for the rest of its term.
I wouldn't be sure to be honest. While abortion isn't a rural v urban issue in the normal sense, notwithstanding the referendum result, rural Ireland tends to be more traditional and conservative. The Government's opening of the disability debate again, not least while rural Ireland is fracturing (Climate crisis, energy and the general perceived impact of a Government with the Greens in it). More likely, a good old Oireachtas Committee will be established, at best, and the can will be kicked down the road.
I don't see why it should be such a huge palaver; the government can legislate however it wants now, that was the whole point of repeal. The political point of further liberalisation would be shooting the opposition's fox; would be little hay to be made in pushing for even more liberal abortion. And there would be little conservative backlash at the ballot box because FF and FG would both own the move.
This is not really a HSE issue. The HSE can only implement the law given to them.
I am not sure how you can do that to be honest. That issue was a key part of the debates prior to referendum, most especially by the 8th Amendment Committee. It's hard to see how you broaden the scope of that provision without effectively allowing for abortion on the grounds of disability. Some will argue that that is fine and that's what pro-choice is about, some will argue very differently. It's just 4 years since the Constitutional referendum and I would not be convinced the electorate is ready to reopen that debate. Whatever, about the electorate if the Government decide to reopen that debate it will overshadow the second half of their term of office.
I wouldn't want to take away too much from the quoted study as it is the first comprehensive Irish based research, but the sample size was tiny relatively speaking.
Thanks. As always, the HSE drags its heels and we all suffer. Too much RCC influence throughout the HSE still, unfortunately.
Missede this at the time but think it might be a sraw in the wind
Mr Martin described some of the findings in the report as "disturbing" and said the analysis by Dr Catherine Conlon, Assistant Professor of Social Studies at Trinity College Dublin, would feed into this review of the legislation...
Dr Conlon explained that two clinicians need to give an opinion on whether a foetus will survive before or within 28 days of birth, leaving a lot of scope for clinical opinions and leading to painful delays for those involved.
I suspect we can anticipate a significant broadening of the definition of the kind of foetal anomaly that qualifies for a later term abortion, if not quite the full decriminalisation sought by Brid Smith et al.
A risk that we should be willing to take.
But it'll equally ban all of those pro-abortion protests we keep having outside hospitals and surgeries 😉
That legislation, whenever it finally passes, will be challenged early on. It will be an interesting one to watch for a variety of reasons.
I presume with this "10. displaying any item, whether symbolic or otherwise, with the intended or likely effect of influencing a person’s decision to access termination of pregnancy services" they are attempting to deal with things like coffin displays.
I can think of a few Senators that must be having a nervous breakdown.
Finally
Cabinet has approved the introduction of legislation on "safe access zones" which propose a buffer of 100 metres around any healthcare facilities that can provide termination of pregnancy.
Under the proposed laws anti-abortion protesters could be fined or jailed for demonstrating outside healthcare settings.
This will, in effect, see the introduction of exclusion zones around all hospitals, all GP practices and Well Woman or Irish Family Planning Association services.
Cork-based GP Dr Mary Favier has welcomed the move.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Dr Favier said: "It has been exceptionally difficult for our patients to come into our surgery and take the risk of having protesters.
"For instance, there have been protests at my practice even on days when I'm not there (with) no abortion provision taking place but all patients being harassed and staff being harassed.
"It's not a particularly common problem but when it does occur it's very persistent. In our practice we've had a few episodes of it, but in some practices, particularly in rural areas, it's been really persistent.
"Numbers of people gather outside surgeries with placards, shouting and shaming people as they come in, all patients and not just patients accessing abortion services.
"We're really looking forward to the fact that it will remove this intimidation.
"We really respect the right to protest and that's a really important thing that we would acknowledge but in the appropriate place. Not in front of healthcare settings."
There's a review going on about the (poor) implementation of the law, but when that goes before the Dail committee they can recommend legislative changes which the government can then ignore in time-honoured fashion.
Hasn't the Government already said that the review won't be looking at changes to the law or at least the main policy points?
He might not understand that should a pregnant person be charged and fall liable to punishment under the content of his bill, he too would be liable under the same bill if anything happened them as a result while they were pregnant.
Can't remember if anybody posted it here, but a few weeks back, a pregnant lady driving alone in some "two or more people" car lane in Texas was stopped by a cop and excused herself by pointing out that in Texas, her foetus now counted as a second human being and therefore, the cop was wrong to stop her.
It looks like an extension of the notion to punish anyone involved in abortion at State, not Federal, level to target specifically pregnant persons for thinking about maybe having an abortion while pregnant, including inquiring about how to access such services. If Larry includes those people in his definition of "Attempted Murder" He might not understand that should a pregnant person be charged and fall liable to punishment under the content of his bill, he too would be liable under the same bill if anything happened them as a result while they were pregnant.
The FF backwoodsmen make Micheal Martin look like some sort of radical liberal.
Since the start of last year, Representative Larry Pittman (R-NC), has been proposing a fun new "pro-life" amendment to NC's constitution which demands that abortion providers should be executed by vigilantes. The poorly-worded bill is unlikely to see become law for a multitude of reasons.
https://www.thefocus.news/culture/north-carolina-abortion-death-penalty/
Proposed amendment:
https://legiscan.com/NC/text/H158/id/2311264
"It is a matter of indisputable scientific fact that a distinct and separate human life begins at the moment of fertilization. As such, that new human life is recognized by the State as an individual person, entitled to the protection of the laws of this State from the moment of fertilization until the moment of natural death. Any person who willfully seeks to destroy the life of another person, by any means, at any stage of life, or succeeds in doing so, shall be held accountable for attempted murder or for first degree murder, respectively. Any person has the right to defend his or her own life or the life of another person, even by the use of deadly force if necessary, from willful destruction by another person. The State has an interest and a duty to defend innocent persons from willful destruction of their lives and to punish those who take the lives of persons, born or unborn, who have not committed any crime punishable by death."
Half of maternity hospitals still refusing to provide services they are legally obliged to, how and why is this tolerated?
Particularly through the HSE.
The HSE, the implementation arm of the RCC for their forced birth agenda. Getting RCC out of medical decisions is crucial, pencil-necked church boys like MM beholden to it are a big problem. We need an election.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has told the Dáil that a review of abortion legislation in the State will be completed by the end of this year.
Four years on from the landmark referendum repealing the Eighth Amendment, Mr Martin said: "These are complex issues at the best of times, however, the law of the land should apply, and should be adhered to, particularly through the HSE."
He was commenting following the publication of a report today which found the needs of women seeking abortion services for severe fatal foetal anomalies were not being met.
Mr Martin described some of the findings in the report as "disturbing" and said the analysis by Dr Catherine Conlon, Assistant Professor of Social Studies at Trinity College Dublin, would feed into this review of the legislation.
I'd been under the impression this review was supposed to have been completed by 3 years after the commencement of legislation i.e. Jan 2022, it barely started by then and it looks like it'll be four years after the legislation commenced before the Dail even starts to consider what changes are needed.
Fairly nauseating and completely hypocritical piece of triumphalism from the Iona "Institute"'s Maria Steen in last Saturday's IT, no need to repeat such here as I'm sure you could all basically write it yourself at this stage. However some good letters in today's IT:
A chara, – Maria Steen writes that both Roe v Wade in 1973, which found there was a right to privacy in the US constitution that included the right to an abortion, and Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned that decision last month, were the result of politicised courts (Opinion & Analysis, July 9th).
However, the composition of the court five decades apart suggests this was not the case with Roe.
Roe v Wade was decided by a majority of seven to two. The opinion was written by Harry Blackmun, who had been appointed to the court in 1970 by Richard Nixon and drew on his experience as counsel for the Mayo Clinic. Of the seven who signed the decision, five (Blackmun himself, chief justice Warren Burger, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, and Lewis Powell) had been appointed by Republican presidents, while two (William O Douglas and Thurgood Marshall) had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
Of the two dissenters, Byron White and William Rehnquist had been appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents respectively.
In the years since Roe, and particularly since Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992), in which recent Republican-appointed judges accepted the “central holding” of a right to an abortion, the Republican Party organised to ensure orthodoxy in its judicial appointments.
This was explicit in Donald Trump’s pledge before the 2016 election that he would appoint judges to overturn Roe v Wade. The five judges who overturned Roe had been appointed by Republican presidents, with three appointed by President Trump, in fulfilment of his pre-election pledge; the chief justice, who upheld the Mississippi abortion ban on narrower grounds, had been appointed by President George W Bush. The three writing in dissent had all been appointed by Democratic presidents.
The politicised nature of the US supreme court is not limited to abortion.
Whether it be guns, money in politics, access to voting, religion in schools, or environmental regulation, it has become all too easy to predict the outcome of their major cases based solely on the party which appointed six of the judges.
This is the politicisation of law and the constitution that US liberals are rightly concerned about. – Is mise,
WILLIAM QUILL,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – Maria Steen observes in her opinion piece, with apparent approval, that the US supreme court’s conservative majority, in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, “voted to return ... power to the representatives of the people” and “take abortion out of the constitution and return it to the legislators”.
Could this be the same Maria Steen who was a vigorous and consistent supporter of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, the primary objective of which was to take the issue out of the hands of Irish legislators? – Yours, etc,
SEAN RYAN,
Galway.
Zing!
Ireland’s abortion legislation is “inhumane” and “discriminatory” in its treatment of women with crisis pregnancies, the United Nations human rights committee has heard.
...
Hélène Tigroudja, a member of the body, said the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Act) 2018 placed “very many barriers, both legal and practical” to “safe, legal and non-discriminatory access to abortion”.
Referring to the mandatory three-day wait period for women between asking for a medical abortion and accessing the medication, Ms Tigroudja said this was “a disadvantage for women living in rural areas, women in poverty and women experiencing violence [who] simply cannot return several times”.
The rule that women with a diagnosis of a fatal foetal anomaly could access abortion only where there was certainty that the foetus would die within 28 days of birth meant that many women who could not travel had to carry such pregnancies to term.
“This is a problem for women who are less well off. They have to continue with their pregnancy ... This is inhuman treatment and this is discrimination on the grounds of economic status,” she said.
At an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said.
This disclosure was a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major conflict of interest. Nienaber’s ministry’s umbrella organization, Liberty Counsel, frequently brings lawsuits before the Supreme Court. In fact, the conservative majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, cited an amicus brief authored by Liberty Counsel in its ruling.
This court has zero credibility.
Did you know that the bible prescribes abortion as the solution to a woman's marital infidelity?
Neither did I.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV
"... may the Lord cause you to become a curse [...] when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries." [...] If she has [...] been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: when she is made to drink the water [...] her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse [...]
Editorial from a recent NY Times on how 'rich women won't be impacted by the repeal of Roe is a myth.' Ectopic pregnancies are an obvious reason - hours matter, you can't just hop in a private plane and some states won't let you travel anyway. But, there's way more to it than just that one example.
