The Irish journalist Philip Nolan made the interesting observation, which I've never seen before, that neither church nor state in Ireland, actually recognize conception as the beginning of life. For example, if you miscarry, you cannot have a funeral or a baptism. After a stillbirth, it can be registered only if the baby weighs 500 gms. Life = weight? I expect that the No campaign will have some reply.
I forgot another point that every miscarriage should trigger an inquest, if a little human person has died.
At one point the state of Indiana passed a law requiring any miscarriage or aborted fœtus/embryo, regardless of gestational age, to be "interred or cremated by a facility having possession of the remains". This led to a campaign where women would contact the governor's office to discuss their periods in detail and ask about how they should dispose of the potential remains. The governor was something of a tightly-wound god-botherer who was completely humorless about the whole thing. I wonder whatever happened to that guy?
No idea what that is a link to and am not going to try to find out anything further. When I clicked on it, I got a message from an organisation called NPR. Never heard of them and there was no indication what those initials stand for. The page simply said,
"By choosing “I agree” below, you agree that NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This information is shared with social media services, sponsorship, analytics and other third-party service providers. See details."
At one point the state of Indiana passed a law requiring any miscarriage or aborted fœtus/embryo, regardless of gestational age, to be "interred or cremated by a facility having possession of the remains".
Do they know what that entails? (TMI warning) It means that every time you are pregnant and spotting blood, you cannot pee in a toilet in case that's the moment it all comes away. You have to pee in the bath instead, with the plug in, and poke around in any clots, and then rinse the bath, once you've confirm there's no foetus there. It's not so bad when you are in hospital, because they have papier mache inserts which fit into the toilet, and kind nurses do the poking around for you, but it's a miserable experience when you are still at the spotting stage, especially if you are spotting on and off for days. And if you aren't at home, if, for example, you are half way through a church service when you realise that you are passing a clot, which might be the clot which contains the baby or might not be, who knows? then to avoid inadvertently flushing your baby down the church toilet you have to cover the toilet floor with paper towels and use the floor. At least, that's what I did.
Have the people who pass this sort of legislation actually gone through the mechanics of a miscarriage?
There was an Irish woman on TV last night, saying how wonderful it was, when she held her dying baby in her arms, who'd just been born. By the end, we were shouting at the TV, but not everyone wants that! I don't get this idea, that I did X, so you should, and furthermore, you can go to prison, if you don't.
There was an Irish woman on TV last night, saying how wonderful it was, when she held her dying baby in her arms, who'd just been born. By the end, we were shouting at the TV.
So was my wife, who felt that it was cruel to the child to let it have been born when the medics were certain that it couldn't survive.
Trump has recently done something legal concerning federal funding for planned parenthood. Is this a win for anti-abortion voters in the USA? Is it enough for Trump to be believed by those voters if he says that he has fulfilled his anti-abortion promise to them?
Trump has recently done something legal concerning federal funding for planned parenthood. Is this a win for anti-abortion voters in the USA? Is it enough for Trump to be believed by those voters if he says that he has fulfilled his anti-abortion promise to them?
Well, he's also signed a massive tax cut for the wealthy, directed his various cabinet officers to slash environmental and workplace safety regulations, and his Supreme Court appointment has just penned an opinion preventing workers from filing class action suits against their employers, so I'd say he's in pretty well with the "anti-abortion" voters.
You may be thinking that none of those things have anything to do with abortion, so why would anti-abortion voters be impressed? These kind of actions are routinely undertaken by "anti-abortion" politicians while abortion itself remains legal, so eventually you have to conclude that there's a correlation there. They keep doing it because that's what "anti-abortion" voters want them to do.
Many people have commented that of course Irish women can get abortions - they just have to travel to England, and pay what, £1000, including travel costs. How bizarre is this, that a state outsources its health care for women? Many of those travelling home to vote, have said that they want to vote Yes, so that no more Irish women have to take that lonely flight to England.
Also read an article by an Irish dairy farmer, who said that her pregnant cows get better treatment than Irish women. If true, startling, and shocking.
At one point the state of Indiana passed a law requiring any miscarriage or aborted fœtus/embryo, regardless of gestational age, to be "interred or cremated by a facility having possession of the remains".
Do they know what that entails? (TMI warning)
I don’t think they do. And I doubt they’d know how to inter the remains of the miscarried pregnancy I had, lost as they are onto train tracks (train loo) and the sanitary bin at the ladies at the train station. There was a right of passage after a fashion. I said “goodbye little thing, I wish I’d got to know you better.” Wiped a tear, and left.
These people's lack of compassion is matched only by their lack of knowledge of the practicalities of a miscarriage, and I suspect their lack of willingness to find out. Can’t prove that, mind.
And a massive vote at that. Well done, Ireland! Even rural areas voted heavily for liberalization, and the young seem to have voted by 90 per cent. Catholic Ireland has now voted for divorce, equal marriage and abortion. The times they are a-changing.
It's not right if women haven't been given good, compassionate health care in Ireland.
It's not right if unborn babies are not given good, compassionate care either.
As soon as abortion was legalised in England, it was encouraged. "You don't need to go through with it, you know, you can wait until you are older / more settled / better off....."
I know women who still suffer emotionally because of the babies they didn't have.
I cried when I heard the result of the Irish referendum, I was so relieved for Irish women.
When I was in my late teens and early 20s NZ abortion law was more draconian than Australian, so women wanting an abortion had to fly to Australia. A group of women called SOS (Sisters Overseas Service) helped with organising. The cost of doing so was $300 and whatever else I splurged my money on, I always made sure I had at least the cost of a flight in my bank account so I had the option of making a choice.
Fortunately I never had to use it, but when I read about women having to go to another country it brought back memories of friends, and their experiences.
Terrible stories. Thank God it's over. I noticed during the campaign, that pro- choice people focus on the mother, pro-life people focus on the foetus, and mention the mother in passing. She is subordinate, and may have to die.
Agreed. And even the strapline of the No campaign to “love both” hinted at this, in my view. Loving the woman, but without allowing a mature, competent woman to make her own decisions and instead deciding for her what is best? That’s not how I would define love.
There was an interview with a No voter on the radio yesterday, who said she’d voted No because “each to their own”. That her No vote was the very thing that would prevent “each to their own” didn’t seem to have occurred to her.
Whenever we have these conversations, I find it mind-boggling that people insist that the life of a zygote has as much value as that of a fully functioning woman. A foetus or zygote can only be a potential life - miscarriage and foetal abnormalities are realities which mean that potential life may not reach fruition. A foetus is unable to survive without the incubation of the mother for at least half the gestation period, preferably longer. So insisting on the right to life of a zygote downgrades the mother to being an incubator, literally in some of the cases that hit the press over this campaign.
Of course, the pro-lifers don't use terms such as zygote or foetus. It's 'unborn baby', I've even seen 'boys and girls', but the mother is hardly mentioned. 'Love them both', is a bare-faced lie. The 8th subordinates the mother, if necessary, to the point of death.
Both those stories are haunting. The second especially shows no real care for the unborn either, yet all the NO voters I heard being interviewed expressed overwhelming concern for the unborn. It seems to me that an outcome of this vote holds a potential for more flexible and compassionate care. When rigid systems are enforced for a principle they don't allow for individual differences. Forcing a woman to wait to the point where she develops septicaemia to fulfil the law benefits no one at all and is far from best medical practice.
It’s appalling practice. I knew there had been an amendment in 2013, but only discovered this morning that this was introduced to permit abortions where doctors feel a woman’s life may be at risk from pregnancy complications or suicide. So perhaps the woman in the article might be in a different situation now? (Her pregnancy was 8 years ago).
I wouldn’t want to be the doctor or the ethics board making that decision. Is your life at risk now? While a placenta remains but infection has not yet occurred? How about now? When there’s an infection? Or perhaps we just wait for full blown sepsis? And by the way, keep going for your daily scans with all the happy pregnant women while we decide. It’s an inhuman way to treat someone.
And I second your hope for the potential for more flexible and compassionate care as an outcome from this referendum.
I wouldn’t want to be the doctor or the ethics board making that decision. Is your life at risk now? While a placenta remains but infection has not yet occurred? How about now? When there’s an infection? Or perhaps we just wait for full blown sepsis?
The whole point of good medical care is to never get to the point where “immediate” death is minutes away, situations like the blood bank is exhausted but the bleeding hasn’t stopped, or oxygen levels that are dropping but the ventilator can’t deliver any more pressure without bursting the other lung, or an implanted pump has stopped boosting a failing heart. Good medicine, the medicine we all want, is reversing course many, many steps before.
It’s a great blogpost, thank you.
I love what I’ve read of Jen Gunter’s writing before, on hpv and Gwyneth Paltrow. (Not in the same post...)
I think her phrase about the idea that doctors are “rounding women up for pleasure abortions” is telling. As is the silence from the politician on the end of the phone.
I hope they do the stats afterward, it's been suggested before that the number of terminations goes down.
Some of the 'pro-choice' language does make me uncomfortable. I'm sure some of it's just phrasing, and some of it I'd understand if it was something I had the knowledge to truly emphasise with. But it is reassuring that it's at least close to the utilarian thing to do by a simple genuinely 'pro-life' metric.
Anyhow what are the current favoured explanations as to why (the inverse correlation):
Purely a statistical artifact (or even willfully dodgy stat) ?
States anti-legality also anti sex-ed, contraception etc... ? (in which case could making abortions unnecessary and illegal be a theoretically consistent end goal)
States anti-legality also pro sex-for-rent etc... ?
States legal better at providing the system for the mother to be able to be a mother (including not having to play $XX,000 just to deliver)
Legal centres provide better information (and have less financial interest in carrying out an op)?
Legal centres provide more time to decide and you know if you change your mind you can alway change it again if things really change?
You also get to choose positively? (Or if getting rid of "unwanted-bastards" is an option how can anyone shame you for being a single mum).
The father can't zip away and rely on the mother having to bring up his (and her) kid, so has more inducement to play his part?
I think there are plenty of problems with abortion statistics. The most obvious one is that when abortion is illegal, how do you count them? Women might be very reluctant to advertize an abortion. Also, in a country such as Ireland, women travel abroad, so are these counted as Irish abortions?
The common claim that legality reduces the number, needs some careful separation from overall sex education and resources, particularly contraception. Quite often legal abortion accompanies accessible, even free, contraception, which will presumably reduce the number of abortions.
The common claim that legality reduces the number, needs some careful separation from overall sex education and resources, particularly contraception. Quite often legal abortion accompanies accessible, even free, contraception, which will presumably reduce the number of abortions.
It is certainly difficult to imagine a mechanism whereby the mere legality of abortion reduces the number of abortions. It's not like women are lured into having illegal abortions because it's cool.
But as you say, legalizing abortions tends to come along with a raft of other things - better attitudes to women's bodily autonomy, for example, as well as better sex education, more available contraception, and so on - and all of those things act to reduce unwanted pregnancies.
The issue with statistics can be shown in relation to Poland, where abortion has been illegal since the 90s. Wiki, in its article on Poland, says that estimates of illegal abortions vary between 80, 000 and 200, 000!
It's not a direct relationship, but you could say that as you move to the right, you will ecounter more misogyny and racism, and indeed, homophobia. As TheOrganist points out, the DUP has them in spades. However, there are complicating factors, e. g. religion. No doubt, there are lefty Catholics, who are pro-life.
It's not a direct relationship, but you could say that as you move to the right, you will ecounter more misogyny and racism, and indeed, homophobia. As TheOrganist points out, the DUP has them in spades. However, there are complicating factors, e. g. religion. No doubt, there are lefty Catholics, who are pro-life.
There was a long and close relationship here between Catholics, the Catholic Church hierarchy and the Labor party. That's diminished a fair bit as the Catholic Church moved from what was almost an Irish working-class ghetto (followed by he strong influx of Catholics from Italy and Eastern Europe after WW II).
Some of the comments underneath are incredible. 'Marxist feminists will always continue to liquidate human infants'. Kind of Manichean, or Zoroastrian, isn't it?
OTOH, I'm sure voting to reduce welfare spending in legislative assemblies like the Dail, Parliament and Congress, or for parties that include this in their manifestos, is fine and dandy although this adds pressure on women to seek abortions?
OTOH, I'm sure voting to reduce welfare spending in legislative assemblies like the Dail, Parliament and Congress, or for parties that include this in their manifestos, is fine and dandy although this adds pressure on women to seek abortions?
A good argument but one that doesn't fly in Irish politics. No one ever got elected here on the basis of cuts and any that happen occur because of recommendations after elections.. yes, it is sleight of hand.
In another, wholly expected development, the Bishop of Waterford has backed up the Bishop of Elphin in an Episcopal MeToo.
Speaking on Waterford local radio WLR FM, Bishop Cullinan said:“Let’s face it, euthanasia has now been accepted in this sense that we have accepted - the majority of the Irish people - that some life is not worthy of life.”
As against the previous situation when the potential life of a foetus or unborn baby was seen as more worthy than the actual life of the mother?
Comments
(from Twitter).
At one point the state of Indiana passed a law requiring any miscarriage or aborted fœtus/embryo, regardless of gestational age, to be "interred or cremated by a facility having possession of the remains". This led to a campaign where women would contact the governor's office to discuss their periods in detail and ask about how they should dispose of the potential remains. The governor was something of a tightly-wound god-botherer who was completely humorless about the whole thing. I wonder whatever happened to that guy?
Do they know what that entails? (TMI warning) It means that every time you are pregnant and spotting blood, you cannot pee in a toilet in case that's the moment it all comes away. You have to pee in the bath instead, with the plug in, and poke around in any clots, and then rinse the bath, once you've confirm there's no foetus there. It's not so bad when you are in hospital, because they have papier mache inserts which fit into the toilet, and kind nurses do the poking around for you, but it's a miserable experience when you are still at the spotting stage, especially if you are spotting on and off for days. And if you aren't at home, if, for example, you are half way through a church service when you realise that you are passing a clot, which might be the clot which contains the baby or might not be, who knows? then to avoid inadvertently flushing your baby down the church toilet you have to cover the toilet floor with paper towels and use the floor. At least, that's what I did.
Have the people who pass this sort of legislation actually gone through the mechanics of a miscarriage?
Well, he's also signed a massive tax cut for the wealthy, directed his various cabinet officers to slash environmental and workplace safety regulations, and his Supreme Court appointment has just penned an opinion preventing workers from filing class action suits against their employers, so I'd say he's in pretty well with the "anti-abortion" voters.
You may be thinking that none of those things have anything to do with abortion, so why would anti-abortion voters be impressed? These kind of actions are routinely undertaken by "anti-abortion" politicians while abortion itself remains legal, so eventually you have to conclude that there's a correlation there. They keep doing it because that's what "anti-abortion" voters want them to do.
Also read an article by an Irish dairy farmer, who said that her pregnant cows get better treatment than Irish women. If true, startling, and shocking.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/irish-abortion-referendum-ireland-repeal-the-eighth-vote-cows-dairy-farmer-a8363576.html
I don’t think they do. And I doubt they’d know how to inter the remains of the miscarried pregnancy I had, lost as they are onto train tracks (train loo) and the sanitary bin at the ladies at the train station. There was a right of passage after a fashion. I said “goodbye little thing, I wish I’d got to know you better.” Wiped a tear, and left.
These people's lack of compassion is matched only by their lack of knowledge of the practicalities of a miscarriage, and I suspect their lack of willingness to find out. Can’t prove that, mind.
It's not right if unborn babies are not given good, compassionate care either.
As soon as abortion was legalised in England, it was encouraged. "You don't need to go through with it, you know, you can wait until you are older / more settled / better off....."
I know women who still suffer emotionally because of the babies they didn't have.
I hope the same thing doesn't happen in Ireland.
And the Isle of Man!
When I was in my late teens and early 20s NZ abortion law was more draconian than Australian, so women wanting an abortion had to fly to Australia. A group of women called SOS (Sisters Overseas Service) helped with organising. The cost of doing so was $300 and whatever else I splurged my money on, I always made sure I had at least the cost of a flight in my bank account so I had the option of making a choice.
Fortunately I never had to use it, but when I read about women having to go to another country it brought back memories of friends, and their experiences.
There have been quite a few stories doing the rounds about the effects of the 8th (Savita Halappanavar’s being the best known) but here are 2 more which really stuck with me.
Siobhan Donohue’s is one https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2018/may/23/my-budget-flight-to-get-an-abortion-the-story-no-one-in-ireland-wants-to-tell-video
And the other is this anonymous one from Twitter.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/998280875564466177.html
There was an interview with a No voter on the radio yesterday, who said she’d voted No because “each to their own”. That her No vote was the very thing that would prevent “each to their own” didn’t seem to have occurred to her.
Both those stories are haunting. The second especially shows no real care for the unborn either, yet all the NO voters I heard being interviewed expressed overwhelming concern for the unborn. It seems to me that an outcome of this vote holds a potential for more flexible and compassionate care. When rigid systems are enforced for a principle they don't allow for individual differences. Forcing a woman to wait to the point where she develops septicaemia to fulfil the law benefits no one at all and is far from best medical practice.
I wouldn’t want to be the doctor or the ethics board making that decision. Is your life at risk now? While a placenta remains but infection has not yet occurred? How about now? When there’s an infection? Or perhaps we just wait for full blown sepsis? And by the way, keep going for your daily scans with all the happy pregnant women while we decide. It’s an inhuman way to treat someone.
And I second your hope for the potential for more flexible and compassionate care as an outcome from this referendum.
That came up in the blog post I linked to earlier.
The whole thing is worth a read.
I love what I’ve read of Jen Gunter’s writing before, on hpv and Gwyneth Paltrow. (Not in the same post...)
I think her phrase about the idea that doctors are “rounding women up for pleasure abortions” is telling. As is the silence from the politician on the end of the phone.
Some of the 'pro-choice' language does make me uncomfortable. I'm sure some of it's just phrasing, and some of it I'd understand if it was something I had the knowledge to truly emphasise with. But it is reassuring that it's at least close to the utilarian thing to do by a simple genuinely 'pro-life' metric.
Anyhow what are the current favoured explanations as to why (the inverse correlation):
Purely a statistical artifact (or even willfully dodgy stat) ?
States anti-legality also anti sex-ed, contraception etc... ? (in which case could making abortions unnecessary and illegal be a theoretically consistent end goal)
States anti-legality also pro sex-for-rent etc... ?
States legal better at providing the system for the mother to be able to be a mother (including not having to play $XX,000 just to deliver)
Legal centres provide better information (and have less financial interest in carrying out an op)?
Legal centres provide more time to decide and you know if you change your mind you can alway change it again if things really change?
You also get to choose positively? (Or if getting rid of "unwanted-bastards" is an option how can anyone shame you for being a single mum).
The father can't zip away and rely on the mother having to bring up his (and her) kid, so has more inducement to play his part?
The common claim that legality reduces the number, needs some careful separation from overall sex education and resources, particularly contraception. Quite often legal abortion accompanies accessible, even free, contraception, which will presumably reduce the number of abortions.
It is certainly difficult to imagine a mechanism whereby the mere legality of abortion reduces the number of abortions. It's not like women are lured into having illegal abortions because it's cool.
But as you say, legalizing abortions tends to come along with a raft of other things - better attitudes to women's bodily autonomy, for example, as well as better sex education, more available contraception, and so on - and all of those things act to reduce unwanted pregnancies.
Well, the "pro-life" DUP isn't noted for its anti-racism credentials...
Now, that's what I call doubling down.
There was a long and close relationship here between Catholics, the Catholic Church hierarchy and the Labor party. That's diminished a fair bit as the Catholic Church moved from what was almost an Irish working-class ghetto (followed by he strong influx of Catholics from Italy and Eastern Europe after WW II).
There's this delightful individal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dowson
“It’s worse than that, he’s dead, Jim”
https://twitter.com/catholicherald/status/1001810561536069633?s=21
OTOH, I'm sure voting to reduce welfare spending in legislative assemblies like the Dail, Parliament and Congress, or for parties that include this in their manifestos, is fine and dandy although this adds pressure on women to seek abortions?
A good argument but one that doesn't fly in Irish politics. No one ever got elected here on the basis of cuts and any that happen occur because of recommendations after elections.. yes, it is sleight of hand.
In another, wholly expected development, the Bishop of Waterford has backed up the Bishop of Elphin in an Episcopal MeToo.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/bishop-condemns-jumping-and-roaring-over-poll-result-1.3516704?mode=amp
As against the previous situation when the potential life of a foetus or unborn baby was seen as more worthy than the actual life of the mother?