Workers Solidarity Movement

Several hundred people took part in a demonstration in Dublin last night demanding the government legislate for abortion access as laid down in the X-Case judgement over 21 years ago. Government after government have refused to introduce this legislation due to politicians own conservatism and their fear of the huge resources of the US funded anti-choice movement.  But the massive mobilisations that followed news of the death of Savita Halappanavar after she was refused an abortion in a Galway hospital in the Autumn have forced the Labour Party & Fine Gael to finally begin the process of introducing legislation.

This afternoon the government had finally confirmed that it is to legislate for abortion access under the conditions of the X-case. While we can welcome the failure of the anti-choice movement to stop this announcement, despite frantically spending a quarter of a million dollars euro in ten days, this is so little so late that it is almost meaningless. Perhaps a thousand women a year are already providing a very much more comprehensive abortion access for themselves through the use of pills ordered off the internet while 4,000 plus fly to other countries. Abortion access under the very limited conditions of the X-case will mean nothing to almost all of these women.

Last night saw hundreds of pro-choice activists blockade the gates of the Dail after TD's once more refused to pass X-case legislation. Twenty years after the X-case and one month after the death of Savita Halappanavar women in Ireland were told once more that the politicians had not had enough time. The political parties, in particular the Labour Party, were once more engaged in a cynical game of playing politics - a game that leaves pregnant women at continued risk in Irish hospitals.

Today we are marching in protest at the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar, a pregnant woman who died after being refused a termination, despite requesting one several times.

For years many people have been aware that the failure of successive governments to legislate could result in a tragedy. Whether through cowardice or callousness, since the X case ruling and three referendums allowed for abortion under restricted circumstances 20 years ago, no laws have been drafted to allow doctors to carry out those abortions.

Savita’s death should not have happened. Just as her husband Praveen has pledged to fight for a change in the law to ensure that no other woman dies in the way that Savita did, so every one of us here should pledge to fight for that law change.

One of our members who has been active in pro-choice struggles since the 1980's and who was one of the organisers of the X-case march gave this interview to Ideas & Action.  "I think the expert group is a joke. I know that an abortion law was drawn up over 15 years ago. A law was proposed in the Dail in April and rejected by all the leading parties. It is absurd to say that the politicians need more expert advice. In fact all the various political parties have done in the last twenty years has been to commission a report. .. the group has little to do with expertise and a lot to do with political avoidance and cowardice."

This year has seen a re-energised campaign for abortion rights  in Ireland, starting with the Action on X campaign at the beginning of the year but Youth Defense's awful billboard campaign over the summer invigorated pro-choice activists to take full scale action. On Saturday 29th September the March for Choice was organised to mark International Day for Decriminalisation of Abortion. This has also been organised a month ahead of a publication of a report on abortion from a government appointed expert group, which will examine how the Governement will handle the abortion issue.

In this session from the 2012 Dublin Anarchist Bookfair Socialist Party TD Clare Daly and Dctors for Choice spokesperson Mary Favier look at the ongoing pro-choice struggle in Ireland and in particular at the recent attempt by Clare to get legislation for the X-case passed through the Dail.

A meeting calling for abortion legalisation in Ireland, at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, was filled to capacity last night as hundreds crammed into the room. The meeting marked 20 years from the X-case and the failure of all the political parties in the years since to legislate for the limited abortion provision required by the X-case court judgement.  The clear message was that it was time for Action on X.

The first speaker, journalist Vincent Brown described the long fight for abortion rights in Ireland, from the so -called 'pro-life' referendum in 1983, to the X-case in 1992 and the referendums afterwards.

20 years ago this month details emerged of the X-case, when the Irish state injuncted a pregnant 14 year old who had been raped to prevent her traveling of England for an abortion. The x-case was the culmination of a decade of fundamentalist anti-choice hysteria that had flowed from the 1983 referendum designed to make it impossible to ever legalize abortion again in Ireland.

(Pic: Press launch - taken by RAG)

There will be no change in the law on abortion. A Government spokesman said it had "no plans on the general issue of abortion" despite Bertie Ahern's promise before the last general election that the matter would be addressed.