Workers Solidarity Movement

As the COP23 UN climate talks continue in Bonn, Germany, 15,000 scientists from 184 countries have signed ‘World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice’, a journal article cum open letter urging immediate action on climate change ‘to prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss’. [1]

I have sometimes wondered what it would be like if we failed to stop climate change, imagining that on one sombre and momentous day the people of the world would listen to a definitive scientific announcement: ‘Fellow humans, it is my deepest regret to say that we have simply passed the point of no return.' Our heads would droop in disappointment, craving one more try at the past.

In reality, life and history are not so simple. This statement is not such an announcement of definitive failure. But we might very well read it as such if we choose to ignore the undeniable any longer. And as such, we would do well to wake up from the stupor of our routines, take stock of what truly matters, and commit to doing our part in this great battle. After all, it is a battle for survival, and at present it is as if we are allowing our rulers to march an invading army right under our noses. We can ignore reality, but it is impossible for reality to ignore us.

There has been an increasing amount of public debate in recent years on the issue of climate change. As the effects of increasing overall global temperatures become difficult to ignore, and climatologists raise their voices in warning, more and more people are asking themselves what exactly is climate change and should we be concerned about it. As the COP23 international climate change talks take place, this article will attempt to answer those questions by briefly exploring the basic concept of climate change as described by the vast majority of climatologists.

At its most basic level climate change simply means a change in overall global weather trends.  This change can be brought about by 'natural' and/or 'artificial' means. Natural climate change occurs as a result of events which are not caused by human beings, and some common examples would be an altered amount of solar energy reaching the earth from the sun, or a series of volcanic eruptions. Artificial or 'anthropogenic' climate change occurs as a result of certain human activities such as the large-scale burning of fossil fuels and practicing specific modes of agriculture.

It's not uncommon for someone arguing in favour of criminalising abortion to draw a comparison between pro-choice advocates and the Nazis, often on the basis that supposedly the Nazis had the same liberal views on abortion, or that pro-choice campaigners are of a similarly genocidal bent.

Comparing the Nazis to the Irish feminist movement is bizarre. In summary, Nazi abortion policy was driven by sexism, ‘pronatalism’, and eugenics, while pro-choice campaigners in Ireland are driven by personal freedom.
 

This is the address given by Sojourner Truth to the US Womens Convention in Akron, Ohio most often known as Ain't I A Woman.  Sojourner was born into slavery in New York state and after gaining her freedom through escape in 1826 she became an anti-slavery organiser and speaker as well as a womens rights activist.  The brief speech which linked her race & gender can be considered a very early example of what is now called Intersectionality. This Womens Convention was one of a number held in Ohio in this period demanding rights for women producing a 'Declaration of Rights and Sentiments' signed by 100 women.

"Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

Hurricane Ophelia charged across the island of Ireland in October 2017, causing widespread wreckage and even loss of life. This video puts the storm into the context of global human-caused climate change, looking at the pattern rather than the isolated incident.

The March for Choice saw another another sinister anti-choice video crew in operation.  The last time on investigation they turned out to be an far-right crew who subsequently worked with Tommy Robinson, ex leader of the EDL.  This time the accents were American rather than British and on investigation we discovered they are an extremist anti-choice church, one of this crew has even told media they want women who have had abortions to be executed. [Video report]

As with the previous crew their method is to try and get participants to agree to be interviewed without revealing their extreme anti-choice views. As you will see in the video when challenged as to who they are they tried to vaguely pass themselves off as a TV studio and then Facebook stream.  When people agreed to be interviewed after a few sympathetic appearing questions they were suddenly ambushed with very hostile language in the hope that their targets either don’t notice or get flustered.  The goal is to then broadcast edited footage of flustered or hostile pro-choice people to try and dehumanise us and urge their own followers to fanaticism.

Saturday the 30th of September 2017 will go down as a high point in the fight for abortion rights in the Republic, and that is a struggle that stretches back decades. Years of campaigning and maintaining a focus on the issue, saw a massive crowd of nearly 30,000 people take to the streets for the annual March for Choice as organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC). The calls are for action, and the need for Repeal of the 8th Amendment.

Unions, organizations and groups that sign this call want to let all the working and popular classes know our stance on the different events that have taken place during the last days on the streets in our cities and towns.

For some years we have witnessed how the rise in tension in a – already historical – conflict has been taken advantage of to cut back the fundamental rights of the people. We come from a strong political and syndical tradition that has historically stood up for the rights and the freedom of the oppressed class and has also taken the streets whenever it has been necessary in order to grab from those in power everything we need to become protagonists in our present and future.

The delaying is almost over and a date for a referendum to finally overturn the 8th amendment has almost been confirmed. But - as expected - the government are now publicly threatening to present a wording other than the one needed - a vote to remove the anti-choice Article 40.3.3.

The media are reporting that the government are instead trying to somehow present a referendum that would include the terms abortion could be accessed under. Essentially the overwhelmingly old, male and conservative government do not want to follow the recommendations given by the very body they set up to avoid such responsibility. The creation of the Citizens Assembly was clearly imagined by the government as a way a new, very restrictive, anti-choice regime could be created in the aftermath of the referendum and presented as ‘the people’s will’.

However it turned out when 100 random people heard weeks of expert testimony they decided the reasonable moderate position was the one where restrictions on pregnant people would be removed or at least minimised. To the anti-choice extremists in power this was unexpected, they were only willing to concede movement on the very edges of the extreme anti-choice laws under which pregnant people and doctors face a 14 year jail sentence.

When pro-choice militants argue that their struggle is the continuation of a historical fight against the oppression of women, they are met with a pro-life movement which attempts to symmetrically paint itself as fighting for the rights of ‘‘the unborn child’’, a category which would otherwise remain defenseless and be sentenced to life or death by their bearers.

But both sides are far from holding symmetrical views. For one thing, while people who can get pregnant initiated the pro-choice movement, there is no doubt embryos didn’t start the pro-life movement. No pro-life advocate would deny this trivial statement, if anything they would use the voicelessness of “the unborn” as an argument to emphasise the unfair nature of abortion rights.

While it is easy to understand why one group would be motivated to fight for their own interests, explaining why a group would me motivated to fight on behalf of another group is not as straightforward. Pro-life advocates would have us believe that they are fighting for the “unborn child” first and foremost out of a strong sense of empathy and out of an unremitting commitment to defend the human right to life. The problem is that this is demonstrably untrue. Far from being satisfying explanations, empathy and adhesion to moral principles don’t even qualify as partial explanations for the commitment of pro-life advocates.