Workers Solidarity Movement

The demand for abortion rights is a shallow one if all that it means is a right to a safe and legal abortion. The demand for abortion rights must be brought into the greater battle for full reproductive freedom.

Reproductive freedom means that if someone is pregnant and does not wish to be they are supported, financially and emotionally in that decision. Likewise, if someone wishes to have a child they should not be constrained by, for example, financial issues.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Dublin Saturday 26th September on the warmest, sunniest day in quite some time, to demand the fundamental right to abortion services on this island. The 4th annual March for Choice, organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign, began with a gathering at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square.

Last Saturday the 26th of September saw thousands of people take to the streets of Dublin for the now annual March for Choice. The march is organized every year by the Abortion Rights Campaign.

The current key demand is that for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. This amendment passed in 1983 equates the life of a mother with that of a foetus. It's implementation through the legislation of the Labor Party party and FIne Gail government means in effect that a doctor who helps a pregnant person have an abortion or someone who procures one in Ireland could face a jail sentence of up to 14 years.

Over 1,000 abortion pills were seized last year at customs, a figure that represents double the amount seized the two years previous. This fact is very much in contradiction with the myth of the anti-choice side that there is no demand for abortion in Ireland.

Despite the fact that abortion is illegal in Ireland and having an abortion, or even helping someone have one, is punishable by up to 14 years in jail it is a well known fact that abortions still occur.

September is a terrific month for you to become more involved in the struggle to make access to abortion in Ireland free, safe and legal.

Child-care in Ireland is so expensive because it is so undervalued. Only through care-workers’ collective withdrawal of labour will those who rely on us realise how vital our work is.

Across the European Union, childcare costs around 12% of a family’s income, but in Ireland, it accounts for over 35% [1]. Where does that money go? With most childcare employees on minimum wage, it isn’t going to ordinary care workers. At a protest outside Leinster House in February, 2015, the Association of Childhood Professionals estimated that there are around 25,000 people in the early childhood workforce on an average pay rate of less than €11 an hour [2].

A couple of hundred people came to the pro choice solidarity rally in Dublin last night. It was called to protest against the prosecution of a women in Belfast for supplying her daughter with the abortion pill.

Banners reading Drop The Charges and Free Safe Legal Abortion had been prepared the previous evening for the protest which had been called by the Workers Solidarity Movement and (Re)al-Productive Health. There were speakers from both these organisations but also from the Abortion Rights Campaign and ROSA whose banners were also brought to the protest.

To those involved in left-wing or anti-establishment activism the word "solidarity" has a different meaning to those not involved in anti-capitalist or feminist struggle.

Among leftists it's not only an emotion, it's something that you feel in your gut. It's something that spurs you into action and that drives you forward even when the end destination is nowhere near in sight.

Pro-choice campaigners in the north picketed two of the largest police stations to challenge the authorities to arrest them for breaking the law by procuring abortion pills. This was in “an act of solidarity” with woman who is being prosecuted for obtaining abortion medication for her pregnant underage daughter.