Archive for the ‘X Case’ Category
Lies Damn Lies and Statistics
This is a wonderful educative article on how to read polls accurately : strongly recommended
Posted by Eoin O’Malley (21 February, 2013)
A poll released today by the Pro-Life Campaign seeks to ‘challenge the notion that there is broad middle ground support for abortion in Ireland.’ This polls claims to show that two-thirds of Irish people want ‘legal protection of the unborn’ and suggests that this means Irish people are against legalised abortions. This should surprise some as it follows on from a IpsosMRBI poll in the Irish Times recently which showed a substantial majority in favour of legalised abortions in a variety of circumstances.
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Pope Benedict’s Resignation Brings an Awful Papacy to an End – On the Same Day Irish People Show They Want Abortion Legalised Now
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/11/pope-beneditc-resignation-paradoxical-papacy
Shed no tears in Ireland for a Pope whose record on Catholic Church child abuse is awful. His successor is unlikely to be an improvement, and his loyal laity in what used to be called “the land of saints and scholars” swim against the tide of pro-choice popular sentiment on the abortion issue.
All out on March 4 to insist on the legalisation of Abortion in the Irish state – tell the Dublin Government to abandon Rome Rule!
On the same day a new Irish Times Opinion Poll showed huge majorities in favour of legalising abortion in Ireland :
There is strong public support for the Government’s plan to legislate on abortion, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll.
It also shows that a substantial majority of voters back much wider access to abortion than that being proposed by the Government.
Asked if the Government should legislate for the 1992 X case to allow abortion where a mother’s life is in danger, including the threat of suicide, 71 per cent said Yes, 11 per cent said No and 18 per cent had no opinion.
Pro-Choice Sentiment is now very strong in Ireland :
In regional terms Dublin was strongest in favour, with the rest of Leinster the least supportive of legislation.
Nonetheless, there were big majorities for legislation in all regions, social categories and age groups
Web link :
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0211/1224329906498.html?via=rel
However the government is still putting necessary legislation on the long finger – and that is totally unacceptable.
Put Kenny and Gilmore Under Pressure :
Action on X – Legalise Abortion Now – Women’s Lives Matter – Rally for X March 4 2013; Assemble 6pm Central Bank; March to Dublin Castle
X Case – Anti-abortionists restrictions must be rejected
Joan Collins TD, Clare Daly TD
Statement – 4 Feb 2013 – immediate release
Legislate for X Case
Anti-abortionists restrictions must be rejected
The delay of a memo to Cabinet regarding the forthcoming legislation on abortion shows that pressure from the anti-abortion minority must be rejected, said Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD.
Joan Collins said:
“The suggestion that the opinions four or five medical practitioners should be required to approve a medical treatment – in this case abortion – to remove a risk to a woman’s life, is an attempt to make abortion inaccessible in practise.
The idea that a despairing woman or girl, driven to consider suicide as a means to escape the trauma of continuing a pregnancy she truly cannot face, would be able or willing to go through four or five medical assessments is a cruel denial of the reality of such a situation. Confronted with such restrictions, any woman who could afford it would travel abroad for an abortion. Poorer women, girls, or those too ill to travel would face obstructions that could drive them over the edge.”
Clare Daly went on:
“A maximum of two medical practitioners, and in an emergency one – should be enough to approve abortion when it is necessary to remove a threat to a woman’s life. And such a threat, as the Chief Justice said in X Case ruling, should not need to be ‘immediate or inevitable’ in order to approve an abortion. The anti-abortion minority must not be allowed continue to impose other restrictions – which could put women’s lives at risk.
Delays in the introduction of legislation for X – which is very restrictive and would only apply in the few instances where lives are threatened – shows the need to repeal Art 40.3.3 from the Constitution to make abortion an issue of medical treatment to be decided by a woman in consultation with her doctor.”
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More on the Government’s Foot-Dragging Here :
What Do We Not Talk About When We Do Not Talk About Abortion?
http://www.claredaly.ie/what-do-we-not-talk-about-when-we-do-not-talk-about-abortion/#more-1333
if it were finally accepted that the old Church-State complex was no longer the dominant force in Ireland, the way would be paved for a very awkward discussion; what should be the dominant ideology in Ireland? How should the state relate to class and gender? Who should hold power and, more importantly, who should have power taken away from them?
And so we get Lucinda Creighton, Enda Kenny, and many other politicians who ordinarily are full supporters of free-choice (as long as it is the limited neo-liberal kind of free choice in the market place) clamouring to strictly control this debate, to not pass legislation for as long as possible, and, whenever they do finally pass legislation, to make sure it is as limited in scope as possible. This practiced silence and inactivity is a conscious strategy, based on the idea that by not talking about abortion, they might be able to also prevent us all from talking about all these other issues, of power, class and sex.
Legislate for X – No restrictions that make abortion inaccessible – Statement by Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD
Clare Daly TD, Joan Collins TD
Statement – 1st February 2013 – immediate release
Legislate for X
No restrictions that make abortion inaccessible
Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD today responded to the publication of the Submission to the public hearings of the Committee on Health and Children with regard to the Expert Group Report on abortion:
Clare Daly TD said:
“We welcome the publication of these Submissions. The Minister now has ample evidence from which to proceed. We call for the prompt publication of a draft bill to provide for abortion on grounds of risk to the life of a woman – either by suicide or other reason related to a pregnancy.
We call for the bill to include the statement by the Chief Justice in the X Case Ruling that a risk to the life of a woman arising from pregnancy – be that risk by suicide or otherwise – should not necessarily be ‘immediate or inevitable’ in order for doctors to perform an abortion to remove that risk.”
Joan Collins TD went on:
“We support arguments made in legal Submissions to the Committee that abortion on grounds of fatal foetal abnormality could and should be included in the bill. We also call for trust to be put in the women of Ireland and in their doctors – as was argued in many of the Submissions to the Committee – and for the forthcoming bill not to include restrictions such as to make abortion inaccessible in practise and thereby put women’s lives at risk.”
Clare and Joan both insist that Legislation for X is only the first step. They jointly declared:
“Many of the Submissions illustrate the need for abortion to be made available in Ireland on grounds of risk to health, rape and incest, and fatal foetal abnormality; and when a woman feels that she simply does not wish to proceed with a pregnancy – for whatever reason. We support access to abortion on all of these grounds and will be campaigning for the repeal of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution and the introduction of free, safe, legal abortion in Ireland.”
Web Link :
http://www.claredaly.ie/legislate-for-x/
Legislate for X – Repeal 1861 Act now – Repeal 8th Amendment to Constitution
An Irish Government finally agrees to legislate for abortion – a very significant victory for women, a practicfal example of the power of mass mobilisation politics – NEVER AGAIN
United Left Alliance Statement :
Legislate for X – Repeal 1861 Act now
Repeal 8th Amendment to Constitution
The ULA welcomes the government’s declaration that legislation for the X Case ruling of the Supreme Court in 1992, despite a delay of twenty years, will finally be brought in next year. There is no need to delay however, in the repeal of Sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. This piece of repressive law, retained from the time of British rule, makes abortion a criminal act with severe penalties for women and doctors. We call for the immediate repeal of this legislation. Read the rest of this entry »
Savita’s Laws
Large Demonstration Outside Leinster House on Wednesday November 21 –
Legislate for Abortion Now
Clare Daly has re-tabled her bill to legalise abortion, which will be debated next
Wednesday. ULA members distributed literature calling for another demo to coincide with the
legislation debate.
Praveen Halappanavar did an interview on RTÉ tonight calling for legalisation of abortion,
and thanking the over 10,000 people who demonstrated in Dublin last Saturday.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1121/howlin-halappanavar.html#video
This crowd was overwhelmingly made up of people in their 20’s and 30’s, a big majority of
them women.
The government is still in a very deep crisis.
The public arena is transformed: see for example this pro-choice article by Vincent Browne
in the Irish Times :
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/1121/1224326896233.html?via=mr
International Day of Action for legal Abortion in Ireland
Ireland’s abortion standoff – Al Jazeera Coverage
Ireland’s abortion standoff
A link to Al Jazeera’s coverage is here :
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/irelands-abortion-standoff-0022407
Labour and Fine Gael Must Legislate for the X Case – Gather at the Dáil on November 28, 6pm
Praveen Halappanavar, husband of Savita Speaks – he has little confidence in the Health Services Executive Inquiry established by the Irish State and encourages public mass activity :
Mr Halappanavar also said there were five members of medical staff, as well as a family friend, present in the room with him and Savita when they were told on Tuesday, October 23rd that she could not have a termination of the pregnancy she was miscarrying because “this is a Catholic country”.
Mr Halappanavar also said he believed no inquiry would have been established if his wife’s death had not been brought to public attention.
“I was in India for nearly two weeks and I never heard from the hospital . . . So I had to see people became aware . . . I don’t think there would be any inquiry if there was not the public pressure. I think there would have been an inquest and no one would have known this happened. It is a pity because I thought Ireland would care more for someone so young who died. That let me down. I was not happy about that.”
Asked whether Ms Halappanavar’s parents would come to Ireland for the inquiry or inquest, he said if her father was not “convinced with the investigation” he was “very keen to come over”.
“The law has to change. Maybe Savita was born to change the laws here.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/1120/1224326840862.html
North Kildare Deputy Catherine Murphy makes a telling point about Dáil Votes; discussing the Sinn Féin Private Members’ Motion tabled for decision on Wednesday November 21, Murphy observes :
Catherine Murphy, Chief Whip of the Technical Group, said she would support the motion but expected the response of her colleagues in the group would be “mixed”, with more left-wing members backing the motion while others would not do so.
She added: “It’s not a Private Members’ Motion that we actually require, it’s legislation. I’m disappointed the Minister for Health is talking about it being next year before action is taken.It does look like being some considerable distance down the road. I don’t want it pushed along so that the heat is taken out of the situation: the same set of circumstances could apply to some other woman in the future.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1119/1224326787221.html
An Irish Rising Day, November 17 2012 – “The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us rise!” – Jim Larkin
http://www.facebook.com/actiononx2012
The foundations of the right-wing Fine Gael / Labour Coalition are shaking, trembling, and rocking from side to side :
If it falls, good riddance
“Today a statue of “Big Jim” stands on O’Connell Street in Dublin. The inscription on the front of the monument is an extract in French, Irish and English from one of his famous speeches:
Les grands ne sont grands que parce que nous sommes à genoux: Levons-nous.
Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal: Éirímis.
The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.The slogan, first used on the 18th century French radical paper Révolutions de Paris,[14] also appeared on the masthead of the Workers’ Republic, founded by James Connolly in Dublin in August, 1898. Originally the organ of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, this periodical later became the official organ of the Communist Party of Ireland, which was founded in 1921. The original slogan is usually attributed to Camille Desmoulins (1760–1794), the French revolutionary”
Today :
Mass protest is the only way to win change on abortion
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/savita-protest-dublin-677586-Nov2012/
The November 17 Never Again Dublin Demonstration got huge media coverage in Ireland and abroad.
The Irish Times Reported :
It was headed by a giant banner which read “Never Again”, adorned with images of the 31-year-old Indian dentist.
Organisers of the Dublin march said about 20,000 people had turned out, but a Garda spokeswoman said they estimated the figure to be between 10,000 and 12,000.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1118/breaking3.html
Clare Daly TD spoke powerfully :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=faZj8L5pqGw
See also this statement from the ULA TD’s Clare Daly and Joan Collins :
Labour and Fine Gael bear responsibility for death of woman who was denied abortion
– The crisis is triggered by 7 governments’ refusals to act on the 20-year-old 1992 Supreme Court X Case Abortion Judgment
– The crisis is caused by the preventable death of Savita Halappanavar – 20 TD’s voted for Clare Daly TD’s Bill to implement the X Case Judgment – 111 Members of the Leinster House Parliament – mainly Fine Gael and Labour Government Deputies – voted against – Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 