Cork Women's Right to Choose
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Join the Cork Women's Right to Choose contingent on the 2014 March for Choice on Saturday 27 September.
We are organising a partially subsidised coach from Cork to Dublin and back again after the march that evening. Please email us at cork.womens.right.to.choose@gmail.com if you are interested in traveling up on the coach with us.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Cork protests in response to the outrageous case of the young suicidal rape victim who was denied an abortion
Wednesday 20 August
6pm - Cork Courthouse, 27 Washington Street
Saturday 23 August
12 noon Bishop Lucey Park, Grand Parade
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Pro-Choice film showing Wednesday 5 March
To celebrate International Women's day on Saturday the 8th of March Cork Womens Right to Choose Group group are teaming up with Crawford Film Society to host a film screening event night on Wednesday the 5th of March in the Crawford College of Art and Design. The films will be shown in the downstairs lecture theatre at 6pm - look out for the posters we will have up around the campus.
We will be screening the controversial documentary 50,000 Secret Journeys, commissioned by RTE in 1994. the film features interviews with three Irish women speaking openly and on camera about their personal experience of abortion for the first time on Irish television. The film was deemed to be ‘unbalanced’ by RTE management who decided not to broadcast the documentary the day before it was due to be transmitted in March 1994.
Trailer - http://vimeo.com/86333591
We will also be screening If These Walls Could Talk, a 1996 HBO film staring Cher ,Demi Moore and Sissy Spacek. The movie examines the abortion issue through three stories set in different eras - 50s, 70s and 90s.
It was a surprise success, making it to the highest rated HBO film ever produced.
Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MdC1XJxbs9o
There will be a fundraising raffle on the night, a brief talk on where Ireland stands on abortion rights and a question and answer session following the films.
There will also be some popcorn, drinks and sweets provided free of charge.
Hope to see you there :)
We will be screening the controversial documentary 50,000 Secret Journeys, commissioned by RTE in 1994. the film features interviews with three Irish women speaking openly and on camera about their personal experience of abortion for the first time on Irish television. The film was deemed to be ‘unbalanced’ by RTE management who decided not to broadcast the documentary the day before it was due to be transmitted in March 1994.
Trailer - http://vimeo.com/86333591
We will also be screening If These Walls Could Talk, a 1996 HBO film staring Cher ,Demi Moore and Sissy Spacek. The movie examines the abortion issue through three stories set in different eras - 50s, 70s and 90s.
It was a surprise success, making it to the highest rated HBO film ever produced.
Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/
There will be a fundraising raffle on the night, a brief talk on where Ireland stands on abortion rights and a question and answer session following the films.
There will also be some popcorn, drinks and sweets provided free of charge.
Hope to see you there :)
Join the Facebook event
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Pro-choice film showing in Cork - Wednesday 11 December
Cork Women's Right to Choose will be hosting a showing of
the film "If These Wall Could Talk" at Solidarity Books (43 Douglas
Street, Cork City) on Wednesday 11 December at 7:30pm
If These Walls Could Talk consists of three short separate
stories that each deal with the controversial issue of abortion. Although each
of the stories is set in a different decade, the unifying element (aside from
the subject matter) is that all three transpire in the same house. The first
story stars Demi Moore as the widow of a soldier killer in combat. She becomes
pregnant and does not feel it would be morally appropriate to have the baby.
Because it is the '50s, she must attempt to secure an illegal abortion. The
second story, set in the '70s, stars Sissy Spacek as a mother of a struggling
family. Having successfully raised four children on a meagre income, Spacek's
character must now decide if she should seek an abortion after finding out she
is expecting a fifth. The final story takes place in the '90s. Anne Heche
portrays a grad student who crosses protestors' picket lines in order to
consult a doctor (Cher) about having an abortion.
This event has a fund-raising aspect to it and there will be
a raffle along with entry by donation.
After the film there will be a short discussion period for
anyone interested in getting more actively involved in pro-choice campaigning
in Cork.
Submission to Constitutional Convention
Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group
Submission to the Convention on the Irish Constitution
For a referendum to repeal Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution
About Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group
1. Cork Women's Right To Choose is a long-standing
single-issue group; a loose alliance of women and men who believe that a woman
has the right to control her fertility. We believe that abortion should be
treated as a health issue and not as a criminal law matter. We campaign for
full safe and legal access to abortion and reproductive health services for all
women in Ireland regardless of income, age, sexuality, race, ability,
geography, immigration status, or culture. We are a voluntary, not-for-profit
lobby and direct action organisation.
Executive summary
2. Under the Resolution of the Houses of the Oireachtas of
July, 2012, the Constitutional Convention is required to examine a range of
issues and make other recommendations as it sees fit. Cork Women’s Right to
Choose Group asks the Constitutional Convention to include consideration of
Article 40.3.3 of Bunreacht na hÉireann in its deliberations, and to then
recommend there be a referendum to remove this article from the Constitution
3. We make this request on the basis that the Constitution
should reflect the reality of the lives of Irish citizens – and this Article
manifestly does not.
The facts
4. At least 150,000 women have been forced to travel to the
UK for an abortion since the Eighth Amendment was passed in 1983. In the past
few years the thousands who still travel abroad have been joined by hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of women who are procuring the RU 486 “abortion pill” over
the internet. They are then self-administering at home without suitable medical
supervision and thereby putting their health in danger.
5. Alongside this social reality that somewhere between 10
to 15% of women in Ireland today have had an abortion, opinion polls in recent
years consistently show a significant majority of people living in the Republic
favour an extension of abortion rights. This parallels the latest research into
the opinions of GPs and medical students which also shows a clear majority in
favour of extending abortion rights.
6. These figures highlight the clear social need for this
generally straight-forward medical procedure to be made freely available in
Ireland.
For social justice
7. Migrant women, women with little or no income, women with
disabilities or who are unable to travel for whatever reason, women facing a
pregnancy with a medical diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality have all
suffered disproportionately over the past three decades.
8. The constraints of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution led
to the new legislation on abortion rights, the Protection of Life During
Pregnancy Act 2013, prohibiting abortion in cases of rape, incest, inevitable
miscarriage and fatal foetal abnormality, while women or girls who are suicidal
as a result of unwanted pregnancy will most likely travel abroad rather than
seek an abortion here under its terms. This Constitutional straightjacket
ignores the needs of women who decide that having an abortion is in their best
interest, and in the form of the new Act criminalises women and those who
support them, including their doctors, if they access abortion here in Ireland.
9. As Alan Shatter's observed in the Dáil on 27th November
2012:
“There is no impediment to men seeking and obtaining any
required medical intervention to protect not only their lives but also their
health and quality of life ... It can truly be said that the right of pregnant
women to have their health protected is, under our constitutional framework, a
qualified right ... This is a republic in which we proclaim the equality of all
our citizens but the reality is that some citizens are more equal than others.”
Conclusion
10. Women’s rights should be reinforced and not qualified or
restricted by the Constitution. It is time women in Ireland were treated as
valued individuals with full and equal human rights. Termination of pregnancy
should therefore be treated as a women’s health matter and not a criminal or
constitutional one. Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group want to see a legal
framework that really meets women’s needs and reflects the importance of
women’s rights by providing for free and safe abortion on this island available
for all women who require it.
11. We therefore call on the Constitutional Convention to
stand with the majority of the Irish population who support an extension to
abortion rights within the State by recommending there be a referendum to
remove Article 40.3.3.
==========================================================================
Other pro-choice submissions to the Constitutional
Convention - Available on the Constitutional Convention web site:
Galway Pro-Choice -
http://www.constitution.ie/SubmissionDetails.aspx?sid=e8601d83-2842-e311-8571-005056a32ee4
Doctors for Choice -
http://www.constitution.ie/SubmissionDetails.aspx?sid=f0e51fa7-5d50-e311-8571-005056a32ee4
Abortion Rights Campaign -
http://www.constitution.ie/SubmissionDetails.aspx?sid=595aab68-6157-e311-8571-005056a32ee4
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