Cork
Women’s Right to Choose Group (CWRCG) begins its campaign to Repeal of the
Eighth Amendment today.
Pro-Choice
organisations supported attempts to legislate on the X Case because of the
symbolic importance of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.
As
amendment after amendment was rejected, it became clear that the legislation
would be very restrictive and represented no advance in women’s rights. Indeed,
the section dealing with suicidal women, in particular, seems designed to
ensure those who can afford it can travel to England while those too poor or sick
to travel risk involuntary admission to a mental hospital.
In
particular CWRCG would point to the penalties that can be imposed on any woman
having an abortion outside the framework of the new Act:
CWRCG
spokesperson Sandra McAvoy explained:
“We know that hundreds, if not thousands, of
Irish women are now using the ‘abortion pills’ to self-abort every year. A
punitive fine and/or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years, as
provided for by the new law, will only make these women much less likely to
seek medical assistance if they suffer complications. It does not take much
imagination to understand that a young girl, afraid to tell anyone she is
pregnant may access pills through the internet and be terrified to seek help if
she bleeds profusely.
By continuing the criminalisation of women
self-aborting in Ireland (while guaranteeing the right to travel for an
abortion) far from resulting in the “Protection of Life” this new Act will
actually endanger the lives of the increasing number of women who take this
pill in the first nine weeks of pregnancy.’
Thousands
of women every year will continue to make the difficult decision to seek an
abortion. Bizarrely, the same legislation that threatens them with prison for
having abortions in Ireland protects their rights to travel and to obtain
information on having abortions abroad. CWRCG, like the rest of the Pro-Choice
movement in Ireland, will continue to offer what support we can to women going
through this process. Alongside that we will continue to fight to bring about
real change in Ireland that will see the end to the current dark-ages approach
to women’s rights. The only way to do that is to repeal the 8th Amendment.
