Alliance for Choice symbolic protests across North

by Elly Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:48

Does anyone actually know what the stats are of women with kids having abortions compared to childless women, that would be more helpful to the debate than calling some women ‘stereotypes’. Personally I know about 6 childless women who’ve had abortions and 1 women with 3 kids that has also had 3 abortions.
Judging by the way people wait until their 30’s now to get married (the average age for 1st child in Ireland is 31, amoung the latest in Europe.) I would expect that most Irish women who abort do so with their 1st child. Many Irish women now get to age 40 and have no children and suffer huge regrets about abortions in their teens or 20’s. I think it’s a bit insulting to call the young woman who has an abortion years before starting her family a ‘stereotype’. Presumably all kinds of women have abortions, they are all equally women and all equally deserve respect whether their decision was a positive or a regrettable one.

by June Mon Oct 20, 2008 02:17

to clear up this debate as to whether women are hurt by abortion the suicide statistics really speak for themselves-in Finland its 34.7 post-abortion compared to 5.9 post-birth suicides out of every 100,000.(from 1984-94)

by GH - Alliance for Choice Sun Oct 19, 2008 22:00

The references to 'desperate' women in that Spotlight programme was to those many women. living on benefits or low pay, who cannot get the money together to get a private abortion in England or Europe. Many poor women do not have passport or driving licence and so cannot avail of cheap flights. Just as desperation drove women to backstreet abortions in the past, now it is driving them to get the abortion pill off the internet. Most of the women we meet in Alliance for Choice already have children; the stereotypical 'young one' having an abortion because she doesn't want to be a lone parent is just that - a stereotype.

by Nicole Sun Oct 19, 2008 20:17

The experience of abortion is different for every woman who goes through it. I can only speak for myself and say that the decision I took was the right one for me and I've never suffered from any kind of trauma when I've reflected on it since. Of course we all have our own stories and I can only imagine that a woman who really wanted the pregnancy, yet for whatever reason couldn't continue with it, would be upset afterwards. However, the same woman could just as easily be grieving over an unhappy relationship, an ended relationship, the attitude of parents/friends when she told them she wished to terminate her pregnancy, or countless other reasons. Each of the 40 women in Northern Ireland have their own tale to tell. In my case, continuing with a pregnancy would have meant that for the rest of my life there would have been a connection to a man who I had come to loath, and that would not have been a life worth living. For those who would argue that the man should have a choice too, that's all very well in a philosophical vacuum, but not in the real world where women carry pregnancies and men do not.

Of course an unplanned pregnancy doesn't have to spell doom & gloom, but, when it comes at a particularly difficult time in life, it can be more than we can cope with - so yes there are women who desperately need to have their pregnancies terminated - and there are others, like me, who are not desperate. We know that this is the right choice for us, and that we are well within our moral rights to decide what happens inside our own bodies.

It is unfortunate that we live in a society where we can't be as open about this as we would like. No-one wants to be interviewed on television about their abortion and subsequently find out that they've given their 80-year old granny a heart attack, but that's no reason to assume that we're in any way unhappy with the decisions we have made.

It's high time that women in Northern Ireland - and indeed in this jurisdiction - had the right to control our own bodies. Well done on the demonstration - let's hope that attitudes are finally starting to change for the better.

by Elly Sun Oct 19, 2008 18:00

GH was on TV last week about this issue, really I found a lot of her arguments coming from the same catholic generation she is rebellling against-the idea that pregneancy is a problem, that women are 'desperate' and 'desperatly' need help-this is the same old fashioned idea that getting pregneant is getting into 'Trouble', that it's a disaster or a catastrophe-it's an opinion that still broadly exists amoung the catholic conformists, culchies and neo-conservatives. When authority figures still refer to unmarried pregneancy as innapropriate pregneancy its easy to see why 7 to 8,000 irish women feel the need to travel every year.

by baldy Sun Oct 19, 2008 17:16

it is true that all counsellors/doctors/psychiatrists in this country ask women-so u must be suffering guilt?ahhh what if u don't feel guilty? and the marketing of the abortion industry is to blame or the rubbish peddled as fact that women will only feel relief! if only! I have suffered post-abortion trauma for 11 years, I know another woman grieving solidly for 26 years! It's a nightmare. Even though i suffered everything else on the list of post-abortion trauma symptoms except guilt even a stronly pro-choice counsellor insists I should feel guilt! Both sides try to make women suffer guilt- the pro-life side by saying its the individual's responsibility and the pro-choice side by saying it's the individual's choice- both sides ingore the the fact that the very high abortion rate for social reasons is everybody's problem and society's failure, the individual is not to blame.

by GH - Alliance for Choice Sun Oct 19, 2008 14:31

Even if you leave out the 2 women behind the pillar on the left, there are 38 women completely visible here and there is not a single man in the photo - the men were all at the side giving out leaflets.

I do understand that anti-choice people have difficulties in understanding nuance, but the point of this particular protest was to ONLY have 40 women in the protest, to symbolise the 40 women a week who travel to England.

Actually, the silence and invisibility of most women who travel for abortions is not due to any psychological problems they face but due to the vicious propoganda of the anti-choice brigade who make many women feel guilty for NOT feeling guilty. Even Prof. Patricia Casey, the leading anti-abortionist admits that psychological difficulties following abortion are no less common than psychological difficulties following giving birth...and I don't see any christian groups being established for women hurt by birth.

As for the supposed thousands that the anti-abortionists were going to bring to Stormont yesterday...despite a publicity campaign that included billboards and newspaper adverts, the rally only numbered in the hundreds. So.....where is the real majority? On the pro-choice side.

by Bernard Sun Oct 19, 2008 13:27

.
I see from the photo that the most people that could be mustered for a pro-abortion rally is 32.
And even with the masks on, you cannot hide the masculine stance of some of the participants.
The fact is that the pro-abort movement represents an ultra-minority on the fringes of society.
.

by Jemma Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:34

the silence and invisibility of those 40 women is truly heartbreaking, its no surprise the post-abortion trauma and post-abortion suicide rate is so high when most GP's don't even record an abortion on patients medical files. There will be 'silence no more' gatherings in dublin and belfast this november where women, men, grandparents and others who wish to share thier experiences can do so with others who suffered from the abortion experience.