What might the ‘Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill’ mean for Irish women seeking abortion?

The Irish government has produced a bill which if passed, will, according to Prime Minister Enda Kenny, ‘clarify the circumstances’ in which medical practitioners can intervene to save a woman’s life by providing abortion. Kenny has stated that the new bill “would continue within the law to assert the restrictions on abortion that have applied in Ireland and which will apply in future”. In other words, it does not seek to change Irish law on abortion, which states that abortion is restricted only to cases where the pregnant woman’s life is in danger. Following the recent death of Savita Halappanavar in Galway there has been a demand for clarification on the circumstances in which doctors can legally provide life-saving treatment. Kenny claims that if the bill goes through it will “at last bring certainty to pregnant women and legal clarity to medical personnel who work within the system”.

So what does the bill actually say?

The bill is carefully worded so as not to present decision making around abortion as privileging the rights of the woman over the rights of the developing pregnancy. Suggested provisions are purely about saving a woman’s life in emergency situations and all efforts must be made to protect the ‘unborn child’ (as the pregnancy is referred to) wherever possible:

“Essentially the decision to be reached is not so much a balancing of the competing rights rather, it is a clinical assessment as to whether the mother's life, as opposed to her health, is threatened by a real and substantial risk that can only be averted by a termination of pregnancy.”

Some provision is made for those women who claim to be suicidal in the face of having to continue an unwanted pregnancy. It is proposed that in such cases, three doctors are to examine the woman and must reach a unanimous decision on the threat to her life. If the three doctors do not agree, the woman may appeal to another three consultants, meaning that her case could potentially be reviewed by six separate medical professionals.

What are people saying about the bill?

Members of the government claim that the bill would provide much needed clarity to enable doctors to work within the very restrictive Irish abortion law. However, there have been criticisms from both pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners.

Some anti-abortion campaigners have evidenced concerns about the law being ‘relaxed’ with access to abortion expanded. Former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton said the idea that “a simple threat of suicide would make right something that would otherwise be wrong is a really dangerous principle”. And in a recent televised debate, a Fine Gael politician was asked if potentially fatal health risks are an 'acceptable risk' in pregnancy, or whether they are grounds for abortion in some cases. He responded: "But sure we’re all going to end up dead anyway." This begs the question of why he’s against abortion, and indeed whether he thinks medical care is redundant for all people whose lives may be in danger or just pregnant women.

Many pro-choice campaigners have taken issue with the ‘suicide clause’ in the bill. A spokesperson from the Centre for Reproductive Rights calls it ‘outrageous and paternalistic’ and goes on to criticise Irish abortion law more generally as being an “absolute violation of international human rights norms on women's right to health and dignity. It's totally off track with the rest of Europe."

In summation, the bill is not yet passed, and if it does go through both houses of Irish parliament, it will not make any changes to the law itself. Even with these amendments the thousands of Irish women who travel to the UK (and elsewhere) to access abortion would still need to do so. Arguably it might make provision for rare cases in which the woman's life is threatened but this will still sit within a legal framework which threatens to prosecute doctors whose actions are seen as being outside of these restrictions.

To follow the debate we suggest checking out the Irish ‘Doctors For Choice’ campaign which will provide regular updates.

The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill can be viewed in full here.

Have you heard about the condom train?

It was not until 1993 that condoms became fully available without prescription for everyone in Ireland. Access to contraception and reproductive control has long been a site of struggle for the women’s movement there. EFC volunteer Sarah McCarthy writes about the famous “condom train” where a number of women brazenly brought condoms into the Republic of Ireland on the train from Belfast.

In May 1971, 47 women gathered at Connolly Station in Dublin, prepared to embark on a potentially dangerous endeavour to purchase contraceptives across the border. These feminists had planned an ingenious publicity-stunt; they were going to buy mass amounts of condoms and contraceptive pills, and challenge the customs officers on their return to arrest them for importing these illegal items. It was a bold move in the 1970's, and many were terrified about what their mothers would think.

Upon their arrival in Belfast, they ran into one slight problem; contraception was so taboo in Ireland, that even most of these feminist women had never seen it in their lives. When Nell McCafferty, one of the founders of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, reached the pharmacy counter, she had no idea what to ask for. Eventually one of the divorced women in the group stepped up to the counter and requested condoms. However, at his point it dawned on them that the customs officials would have no idea what contraception looked like either. So they ordered hundreds of packs of aspirin, put them in paper bags, and pretended that they were contraceptive pills. Jubilantly, they got the train back to Dublin. As they neared the city, a few began to get nervous. What if they got sent to jail? What would their mothers say?! They clutched the statements they had prepared to hand to whoever would come to arrest them. However, the customs men were so mortified by their transgression that they quickly admitted that they couldn’t arrest them all, and let them go without challenge. The women walked through the station victoriously waving the contraband around, with some blowing up condoms like balloons. The response across Ireland was explosive, and the day’s impact lingered for decades.

The Irish Women's Liberation Movement in 1971.

 Women in Ireland have long been subjugated by a deeply patriarchal state and the pervasive influence of the Catholic Church. In the 1920's the colloquial term for birth control was “race suicide” and “a child every year to you” a popular blessing. By the 1970’s, laws from decades back still governed women’s bodies. The 1929 Censorship of Publications Act allowed a board of five men to prohibit the sale of any “indecent or obscene” literature; including that which advocated birth control. The 1935 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act made the import or sale of any contraceptive illegal. Married women were expected to have as many children as possible and women who had children outside of marriage were often incarcerated in institutions run by nuns, called the Magdalene Laundries. Any promotion of contraception was also banned, leaving people woefully and dangerously misinformed. In the late 1940’s, a baby was born in Dublin with the top of a Guinness bottle on its head; the mother had inserted it in herself hoping it would act as a contraceptive. As women’s groups began to recognise the importance of accessing contraception, the Church vigorously resisted their demands. In 1968 the Vatican passed a Papal Encyclical, entitled “Humane Vitae”, which forbade Catholics from using artificial contraception. At the time of the condom train, a doctor could only prescribe the pill to a married woman with an irregular menstrual cycle. The criminalisation of contraception meant that women had no control over the number and spacing of their children; power over their reproduction lay in the hands of a patriarchal state. Thus the fight for contraception was one of the key battles for women’s liberation.

In 1969 the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement and the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) were founded. They began to take direct action against contraception restrictions. In 1970 the IFPA began to give talks on contraceptives to women’s groups, despite the fact that even the promotion of contraception remained illegal. Soon after, Students’ Unions and Family Planning Clinics began to sell condoms illegally. They continued to do so against fines and public pressure. Many women’s groups pursued legal and extra-legal means to publicise and agitate for the urgent need for freely available contraception. The condom train was one amongst many bold and creative actions which openly flouted the prevailing conservative hegemony.

In 1979 the Health (Family Planning) Bill was published, which allowed married couples to access contraception with a prescription. But it was not until 1993 that all restrictions around the sale of condoms were removed, and the morning-after-pill only became available without prescription in 2011. Arguably, the contraceptive revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s, and its long-reaching consequences, had a bigger impact on women’s lives than the right to vote. By 1991 the average fertility rate had plummeted to 1.89. Women gained partial control over their bodies, and much more control over their own destiny.

Today, the fight for reproductive rights for women in Ireland is far from over. Abortion remains illegal, bar in certain exceptional circumstances. However, the horrific death of Savita Halappanavar has crystallised the pro-choice movement in Ireland, and I have no doubt that another struggle of direct action and mounting public pressure will eventually result in further gains for women in Ireland. Perhaps it is time to devise the Abortion Train!

A very sinister hijacking of Savita Halappanavar's death

A guest blog from the unstoppable Farzana: dedicated to the memory of Savita Halappanavar

“Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hands with a grip that kills it” Rabindranath Tagore, (1861 – 1941)

When I read Praveen’s (Savita’s widower) account of the agony his wife was in and the reaction of the consultant when Savita asked for the pregnancy to be induced (as the fetus was unviable) I was angry and humiliated for the Halappanavars who were told “This is a Catholic country.”  A few tweeters noted the inherent racism within that response, @sunny_hundal for one, @SamAmbreen for two - and a whole host of others. However, when this was pointed out during the night and the next day, a very typical response came from certain people who refused to acknowledge that that statement could be perceived as being racist. We were accused of being “over-sensitive”, “reading too much into it” etc...

What I would say to those people is this: imagine you were Savita and Praveen. Savita was in agony by the time her cervix had dilated and both she and her husband were undoubtedly traumatised and upset that they were to lose their first child, thousands of miles away from home, away from the comfort of the familiar. Now imagine, as foreign, non-Irish, non-Catholic people that the medical intervention you have requested in good faith is effectively rejected and done so in a sneering condescending manner. Imagine if your daily lived reality is one of “being the other”.

If you haven’t experienced racism in its obnoxious and subtle forms then one could see how you might not relate to how those of us similar to the Halappanavars would legitimately react. Being generous, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Being miserly; I would say this: if you do not know what it is like to be of non-white skin colour, if you do not know what it is like to be judged for worshipping God in a different form, if you don’t have the same ethno-linguistic or cultural norms or values as the majority, if you are made to feel as if your non-white skin colour, your different form of worshipping God, your different ethno-linguistic-cultural norms are INFERIOR; then you do not know what it was like for Savita and Praveen at that time. You get me bredrens?

Predictably, a small but highly vocal racist group of anti-choice odds and sods have attempted to hijack the death of Savita and gone to town with some very strange views: views which fetishise the fetus but hate the brown mother.

One of the earliest tweets I spotted stated this: “The baby Savita (rip) lost was female. Many Indian people abort female babies. 2 facts”. In fact, according to her brother she had ‘always wanted to have a girl.’

My head sort of exploded about this time. I had a sinking feeling that the most uninformed anti-choicers would use the ethnicity of Savita as a tool in their disastrous counter campaign against a very angry and grief-stricken pro-choice movement.

Claims about Indians and sex-selective abortions are a cheap way to attack Savita’s Indian heritage, MY heritage, as one which is violently disproportionate in favour of men. However, if you consider that India (1966 & 1980), Sri Lanka (1960* the first female head of a modern post-colonial state), Pakistan (1988 and 1993), and Bangladesh - the “Battling Begums”  (1991, 2001, 1996, 2009) all have had female heads of state far earlier than any western country did (including the UK with Thatcher in 1979 and Mary Robinson in Ireland in 1990), you have to wonder – for countries which are portrayed as being so patriarchal and male dominated – we didn’t too badly did we bredrens? The most disturbing commentary on Savita’s death however has come from a well known active hardline anti-choice racist/White Nationalist. a link to his view that ‘Indian people are a bit slow and backward' is here.

First of all his views hardly make any logical sense. To claim that Indians are “slow and backward” when India is 10th largest economy in the world, 3rd for purchasing power, exports worth $299.4 billion. He then goes on to argue if Indians don’t like the way things are done in Ireland, then they “should go back to their smelly overpopulated country.” Overpopulated? Hang on – in the same diatribe, he argues that there is “no justification to allow the murdering of unborn babies.” I would also have to say, bredren, plenty of Irish people leave Ireland too to look for jobs abroad...and to get away from racist bumbaholes like you.

Another tweeter – a silly little boy who clearly doesn’t get out much, doesn’t read a quality newspaper or listen to the news – claimed that:  “That Muslim girl died, she was refused an abortion, am not racist but I f-ing hate smelly rag heads.” After I had picked myself up off the floor laughing hard at his “That Muslim girl,” (Savita was HINDU), I again felt the unease that racists, stupids and anti-choicers make for an explosive amount of stupidly uninformed bigoted views. That Savita was Indian, means that her ethnicity WILL be a factor in their frothy mouthed bigotry. I actually tweeted back “you do realise the woman who you implied as being a smelly rag head was in fact Hindu and not Muslim? PS I'm a smelly rag head.” I await his response, if any.

Savita’s death was horrible enough. Praveen, her husband, will arrive back in Ireland to fight for justice for his wife. A fitting legacy to Savita’s memory would be if Ireland would just reconsider their current legislation and make the necessary changes to ensure that no woman: whether white, brown, Catholic or non-Catholic is ever told “This is a Catholic country” as justification to deny a life- saving medical intervention.

Pro-choice is more pro-life than the anti-choicers would have you believe. Reclaim the term, we OWN it.

Updated: For London based people, there will be a protest outside the Irish embassy on Saturday 17th November 4pm onwards, for further details: http://www.abortionrights.org.uk/