abortion – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

Amnesty NI poll displays attitudes of party voters towards abortion laws

David McCann on October 18, 2016, 10:41 pm

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An interesting poll conducted by Millward Brown for Amnesty International has surveyed the attitudes of voters of various parties towards abortion legislation in Northern Ireland with some noteworthy statistics Overall the poll found that attitudes in Northern Ireland as whole favour reform. Full details can be found here. David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs

Poll: Overwhelming support for amending/abolishing Ireland’s strict abortion laws

Mick Fealty on October 7, 2016, 7:49 am

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The changes in the Republic from just a generation ago are profound. Today the Irish Times poll produces some remarkable figures showing support for abolition of the controversial Eight Amendment to the Irish Constitution, added in 1983 to prevent the casual legalisation of abortion in any form. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the …

“This is not an abortion war, completely not”. Facebook trolls lay off

Brian Walker on April 6, 2016, 4:35 pm

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This is an exclusive interview with an Ulster woman of a very different character. Deborah McAleese’s interview in the Belfast Telegraph with a housemate of the young woman convicted of self aborting is searing, very hard to read. Oddly the impact was less in voice on the Nolan show ( substitute ) because the housemate was composed two years after the event. In Nolan style she was pressed repeatedly for her reaction but held her ground. Her line was ” You can’t …

Department of Health announce new guidelines on abortion in N Ireland

Robert Campbell on March 31, 2016, 9:22 am

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Good Friday this year was on March 25. March 25 is also Lady Day, the Feast of the Assumption, when Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to tell her that she was with child. So you might well think it a strange, tactless, day for the Department of Health to announce new guidelines on abortion in N Ireland. Perhaps they thought it was a a good day to slip out news, perhaps the commemorations of the Rising would overshadow the …

George Monbiot on abortion “The religious conservatives who oppose these measures have blood on their hands.”

Robert Campbell on January 14, 2016, 12:36 pm

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The Guardian ran a series of articles about abortion in N Ireland recently (details here). Now, George Monbiot has turned his analytical mind to this issue (here). His article is well worth reading in its entirety. He produced some remarkable information; whether legal or illegal, the incidence of abortion remains constant: Here is the fact that everyone debating abortion should know: there is no association between its legality and its incidence. In other words, banning abortion does not stop the …

“Ireland is not bound by interpretations of the convention handed down by other national courts…”

Mick Fealty on December 3, 2015, 10:16 am

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ABORTION LAW: To date, Conor O’Mahony points out, the Strasbourg court has not found that there is a general right to abortion under the convention, or that a failure to allow abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality or rape violates the ECHR. In fact it has a history of rejecting such cases.

High Court rules NI abortion legislation breaches Article 8 of European Convention on Human Rights

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 30, 2015, 12:55 pm

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HIGH COURT rules that abortion legislation in Northern Ireland breaches Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to provide an exception to the prohibition on abortion in cases of a foetal fatal abnormality (at any time during the pregnancy) or where the pregnancy is the result of sexual crime (up to the date when the foetus is capable of existing independently of the mother).

Amnesty launch #RepealThe8th campaign to challenge Ireland’s ban on abortion

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on October 19, 2015, 10:22 pm

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My Body My Rights is one of Amnesty’s world wide campaigns. Their European focus [and online petition] is the repeal of Ireland’s Eighth Amendment which equates the right to life of a pregnant woman with that of an embryo or foetus and is the foundation of the ban on abortion. The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, …

#SluggerSoapbox: “the ban on abortion does not stop abortions from happening…”

Soapbox on July 25, 2015, 4:44 pm

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Fionnghuala Nic Roibeaird is a local activist on the issue of reproductive rights The most famous act of solidarity is probably the proclamation of the famous words “I am Spartacus”, the scene in the eponymous movie in which the defeated slaves are asked to identify their leader, Spartacus, as a reward for doing so their lives will be spared. They respond by claiming that they are all Spartacus. In this case many of us are all the Belfast woman who …

Alliance For Choice – #dropthecharges

Kris Nixon (Belfast Barman) on July 20, 2015, 9:26 am

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In June 2015 a Belfast woman appeared at Belfast Magistrates’ Court facing charges of procuring a poison or other noxious substance. The defendant obtained two different medications, Misoprostol and Mifepristone, which are common drugs used to induce abortions. The World Health Organization added these drugs to their “Essential Medicines List” in 2005, a list defined by the WHO as “those drugs that satisfy the health care needs of the majority of the population; they should therefore be available at all times …

Life, death and heartbeats…

Robert Campbell on July 2, 2015, 5:40 am

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The diagnosis of death is mostly straightforward; the medical practitioner looks for somatic, cardio-respiratory and neurological features. Clearly, someone with rigor mortis is dead. Someone with no spontaneous breathing, no heartbeat and no pulse, and whose pupils are fixed and dilated presents the classical features of death. This is usually enough to diagnose most cases of ‘death’, though as the Victorians had a morbid dread of being buried alive, the tradition of requesting a surgeon to open an artery persisted …

Bernadette Smyth: conviction and restraining order quashed

Turgon on June 30, 2015, 7:15 pm

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Anti abortion campaigner Bernadette Smyth was cleared on appeal yesterday. She had initially been convicted of harassing Dawn Purvis at the end of last year. At the original trail the judge Chris Holmes made a number of interesting comments. He stated: “I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not feel it’s appropriate for anyone to be stopped outside this clinic in any form, shape or fashion and questioned either to their identity, why they are going in …

Another Societal Milestone Passed; What Next for Progressing Ireland?

Daniel Collins on June 1, 2015, 9:41 am

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Last Saturday’s overwhelmingly positive referendum outcome in support of constitutional recognition for same-sex marriage was a great result for progress, equality, liberty, inclusion, rights for everyone and all things good in Ireland. It was a proud and historic moment for Irish society generally and especially for those Irish citizens living in the Republic who had and positively utilised the residential privilege to vote. To think homosexual acts were only decriminalised in the state 22 years ago in 1993… Having found themselves under the repressive moral and …

Propagation of patriarchy and restriction of female bodily autonomy is the unifying bridge between Nationalism and Unionism in Northern Ireland.

The Plath Diaries on May 12, 2015, 4:04 pm

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In October 2013, Sarah Ewart braved the public gauntlet by speaking on the Stephen Nolan show of her experience as a pregnant woman carrying a foetus with fatal abnormalities. Few could find themselves unmoved by Ewart’s tragic story – made worse by archaic laws in Northern Ireland forcing her to travel to England to pay for abortion services. Speaking to an audience that included an individual who would soon be convicted of harassing Marie Stopes director Dawn Purvis, Ewart argued …

New abortion proposals published…

Robert Campbell on April 17, 2015, 12:56 pm

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The Department of Justice in N Ireland issued a call for members of the public to discuss whether abortion should be allowed here in cases of ‘lethal’ foetal abnormality or for pregnancy following rape or incest, as I indicated here. The DoJ indicated that they did not wish to open the debate around abortion beyond these limits. The DoJ has now published the findings, and David Ford, the Minister, stated: My department has just completed a consultation exercise on the …

When Manley met Martin: “Peter Robinson and I have never had a bad personal relationship”

David McCann on March 5, 2015, 11:12 am

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Interesting interview in today’s Irish News with John Manley and Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness. It appears to be a much more relaxed and happy man than the person who was sitting in front of Manley a year ago. McGuinness spoke of the improvement in the mood between Sinn Fein and the DUP from last year, but he insists his relationship with Peter Robinson has always been solid; People talk about bad personal relationships between Peter Robinson and myself – …

Perhaps I Should Have Been Aborted…

Kris Nixon (Belfast Barman) on February 24, 2015, 4:22 pm

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To begin with, I wrote this article some time ago when the abortion debate seemed to be at a peak, when the conversation seemed to be led by men and women seemed to be considered little when discussing legislation. This Thursday I am to attend an Amnesty International briefing on “My Body My Rights: Barriers to abortion in Northern Ireland” and how wonderful it is when I look at the speakers for the event… not a solitary testicle between them. …

Feminism versus Bernadette Smyth?

W[r]ite Noise on February 3, 2015, 8:19 pm

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What does it mean to be a feminist? Not easy to define, by any means. How about a feminist in NI today? Even more complex. The women’s movement in Northern Ireland has hit some pretty difficult stumbling blocks over the last four or five decades. The divergence on the treatment of female republican prisoners and their subsequent protests in Armagh Gaol was one such stumbling block in the 1970s / 1980s. The awarding of a Nobel Prize to two NI women in 1976 was, on the other …

What is a ‘person’ – the thorny question at the heart of the abortion debate

Robert Campbell on February 3, 2015, 9:02 am

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The NI Department of Justice has recently begun a review of the abortion laws in N Ireland; this was limited to the place of abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, or pregnancy as a result of actions, such as rape and incest, which are criminalised. The Human Rights Commission was recently granted leave to pursue a judicial review of the abortion laws in NI. The leader of the SDLP, Dr Alasdair McDonnell has “unequivocally” rejected calls for abortion. According …

Politicians must become Pro-Woman to stop further horrors

Patricia MacBride on December 26, 2014, 3:15 pm

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I’m not pro-choice. Nor am I pro-life. I reject both of those labels because they’ve been used in such a pejorative way for so long that they have come to denote extreme views on both sides of the debate around the rights of women and the rights of unborn children that to identify as one automatically makes you a target of hatred and abuse from the other. The recent tribulations of Dawn Purvis, Director of the Marie Stopes clinic in …