The people have spoken – now it’s time to legislate for women
WOW! Just wow! So much for polls and experts. On Friday the nation spoke and the sound reverberated around the world. A Yes vote to repeal the Eighth amendment to the Constitution was always the most likely of outcomes.
Few guessed it would be anywhere near the ballpark of 66.4 per cent to 33.6 per cent though. In a conservative country, one in which the valley of the squinting windows defined lives to the extent that some people ended up in institutions, the amendment to the constitution in 1983 was another way of controlling women. Afterall what is the best way to control a person than to limit their freedom.
The mechanical society of Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s is now in its death throes and the result has been a series of short, sharp shocks, last Saturday’s abortion referendum being the latest, but not the last.
Social solidarity in 1950s Ireland seems to have been based on similarity, where ‘shared values, norms and beliefs and social rules were likely to be broadly accepted by all’.
A society in which norms are breached is the opposite of a tolerant society. Whatever happened to women and children first. To foist one’s life experience and opinions on another is anti choice, in my opinion.
The Good Woman visited the local cemetery with the Whirlwind Princess and The Little Fella on Sunday and placed flowers at a Magdalene Laundry grave representing the lives of 62 Magdalene laundry ‘slaves’ who lived and died in a building nearby.
We are all familiar with the stories of women like Ann Lovett and Savita Halappanavar. For too long women have died and been treated as second class citizens in our country.
In County Wicklow three quarters of vot- ers favoured a Yes vote, with almost 55,000 people voting Yes, compared to around 19,000 voters putting an X in the box for No. In County Wexford it was 68.4 per cent to 31.6 per cent. Like most I followed the debates and the campaigns from a safe remove. I am one of the lucky ones. Not everyone has that luxury. Some people have lost children – either in the womb or at full term. For some the thought of voting Yes and ‘allowing’ Irish mothers to have the choice to have an abortion in Ireland with family nearby is to do an injustice to the child they lost. For these voters, the referendum was contiguously linked in their mind with their child and they couldn’t vote Yes. For some mothers on the Yes side who had to go through the anguish of travelling to Liverpool Women’s Hospital for an abortion, in shame, Saturday was a day which removed one more shackle from Irish womanhood. The comments of a leading bishop on Monday who called on Catholics who voted ‘Yes’ in the abortion referendum to ‘consider coming to confession’, goes to show how visceral and personal the campaign on either side was.
Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran said that those who want to come to confession ‘will be received with the same compassion as any other penitent’. When questioned by Sean O’Rourke on RTE Radio One, Bishop Doran replied; ‘Voting ‘Yes’ was a sin.’
As someone who has listened to the debates on either side, I do feel the right decision was made for the welfare of women, who, you know, gave us life. The people voted No to being told what to do. It’s about time we gave women power to make meaningful life choices. Now it’s the Government’s turn to decriminalise abortion and give women all the help they need at one of the most momentous times in their lives.