Workers Solidarity Movement

The government are trying every trick to delay a referendum to repepeal the hated 8th amendment. Every day they do so means another 12 women have to make the difficult journey to England to access abortion. Department of Health figures reveal that 25,000 people from Ireland have had to travel to access abortion in the last five years.

Starting at 5am today two women making the journey are tweeting about their experiences of doing so.

Follow & retweet the account @TwoWomenTravel as two women travel to England for an abortion & tweet @EndaKennyTD at each stage.

It also has to be remembered that significant amount of people can't access abortion through travel becuase their migrant status denies them travel papers or because of poverty or controlling partners.  All additional reasons why the 8th Amendment must be repealed now without further delays.  A national demonstration demaning repeal takes place in Dublin Saturday 24th September.

We believe in real options and real choices for women. A woman who wants to have a child shouldn't have to spend the rest of her life looking after it. This is why we favour the option of full child-care provision paid for by the state, maternity leave and flexi-time for working, public creche facilities and restaurants. The present role of many women as full-time unpaid childminders within the family must be ended.

A woman who finds herself pregnant and does not wish to remain so should have a right to free, safe abortion on demand. This is not an abstract political slogan, we don't go around shouting "free abortion on demand" in the belief that it can only be gained in the context of a socialist revolution. We believe that it is merely one of the basic first steps in freeing women from the constraints placed on us by capitalism.

Our argument for abortion rights rests on womens' right to control our own fertility. The quality of a woman's life can never be made equal to that of an unborn foetus. The foetus is totally dependent on the mother it cannot be said to have an independent existence. To give it such rights (as per the Irish constitution) reduces women to the status of breeding machines or walking wombs. Just as an acorn can become an oak tree, a foetus can become a human baby. But a foetus is no more a baby than an acorn is an oak tree.

However, politically, there is little point in entering debates on "when does life begin?" or viability of the foetus. Our arguments must must focus on a woman's right to control her own body.

The WSM is entirely opposed to women's oppression. Women's biology, pregnancy and child-bearing has copper-fastened our inferior position in capitalist society. This has been extended so that we are also stuck with child rearing and child-minding within the family. Therefore women's access to work, education, leisure and any chance of self-advancement has been strictly limited. This is especially true for working class women.

Women have always tried to control their own fertility. Anti-abortion laws have resulted in back-street abortions and induced miscarriages. World-wide, one woman dies from a back-street abortion every three minutes. Winning full control over our own fertility is an essential step towards ending womens' oppression. The technology has been developed under capitalism to make this both safe and possible. Women must have the right to use this technology to decide if and when to have children.

We support a woman's access to full, free and safe contraception. If she finds herself pregnant but does not wish to have a child then she should have access to free, safe abortion on request.

At 5am this morning ‪#‎TwoWomenTravel‬ started to detail their journey to the UK to obtain an abortion on Twitter. At 6am 200 people were following the account, by 11am it was over 6,000 people, demonstrating the real hunger that now exists to RepealThe8th

The government as with previous governments are doing everything in their power to avoid and delay calling the needed referendum. On September 24th you will have a chance to force them to act when enormous numbers will take to the streets of Dublin for the annual March for Choice at 1.30.

This is the year we must Rise & Repeal!