Workers Solidarity Movement

The delaying is almost over and a date for a referendum to finally overturn the 8th amendment has almost been confirmed. But - as expected - the government are now publicly threatening to present a wording other than the one needed - a vote to remove the anti-choice Article 40.3.3.

The media are reporting that the government are instead trying to somehow present a referendum that would include the terms abortion could be accessed under. Essentially the overwhelmingly old, male and conservative government do not want to follow the recommendations given by the very body they set up to avoid such responsibility. The creation of the Citizens Assembly was clearly imagined by the government as a way a new, very restrictive, anti-choice regime could be created in the aftermath of the referendum and presented as ‘the people’s will’.

However it turned out when 100 random people heard weeks of expert testimony they decided the reasonable moderate position was the one where restrictions on pregnant people would be removed or at least minimised. To the anti-choice extremists in power this was unexpected, they were only willing to concede movement on the very edges of the extreme anti-choice laws under which pregnant people and doctors face a 14 year jail sentence.

When pro-choice militants argue that their struggle is the continuation of a historical fight against the oppression of women, they are met with a pro-life movement which attempts to symmetrically paint itself as fighting for the rights of ‘‘the unborn child’’, a category which would otherwise remain defenseless and be sentenced to life or death by their bearers.

But both sides are far from holding symmetrical views. For one thing, while people who can get pregnant initiated the pro-choice movement, there is no doubt embryos didn’t start the pro-life movement. No pro-life advocate would deny this trivial statement, if anything they would use the voicelessness of “the unborn” as an argument to emphasise the unfair nature of abortion rights.

While it is easy to understand why one group would be motivated to fight for their own interests, explaining why a group would me motivated to fight on behalf of another group is not as straightforward. Pro-life advocates would have us believe that they are fighting for the “unborn child” first and foremost out of a strong sense of empathy and out of an unremitting commitment to defend the human right to life. The problem is that this is demonstrably untrue. Far from being satisfying explanations, empathy and adhesion to moral principles don’t even qualify as partial explanations for the commitment of pro-life advocates.

The 6th annual March for Choice takes place September 30th in Dublin and once more we are bringing together an anarchist bloc for the march - join us on the day.

It's going to be an important march as the government have promised a referendum next year but have not yet announced a date or indeed what we will actually be allowed to vote on.  There is a real danger that rather than a vote to delete the 8th Amendment they will seek to replace it with text that would still seek to deny bodily autonomy and allow abortion access in very restricted circumstances.  Some 12 people a day are forced to travel to access abortion and more use pills at home under the theoretical threat of a 14 year jail term, the danger is that many of these people would still be unable to access abortion and pregnant people would continue to find the 8th amendment denied them control in their own pregnancy.

Emergency gas flaring has had to take place at the Corrib refinery because unscented gas was allowed into the national grid. Terence Conway of Shell to Sea reports from the gates of the refinery in the video.