Gender

Lessons for Ireland from the Pro-Choice movement in Italy

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I moved to Ireland from Italy shortly after the Strike4Repeal of the 8th of March, a mass mobilisation on the streets of Dublin in protest of Ireland’s archaic abortion laws, which I followed closely on social media. While still in Italy, I had been involved in organising a successful feminist demonstration in the city where I lived, on that same date (International Women’s Day), and I felt deep sympathy and admiration for the Irish pro-choice activists and the amazing work they were carrying out. At first glance it was unbelievable to me that in a western-European country people still had to take the streets to demand access to abortion. While the Irish situation initially felt like something I could not relate to, I soon remembered where I was from and I had to think twice: despite abortion being legal in my home country, safe and effective access to abortion service is currently utopia.

The Personal and Political within Catholic Ireland

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Sci-fi is a genre that I’ve never been able to get into and have never had the desire to change this. I find myself in the strange position now, however, of wishing I was some kind of sci-fi expert so that I could easily find a term for something that is half alive and half ghost. If there were such a term I’d use it to personify catholic Ireland, an institution that is still alive but dying with a ghost that wields most of its power.

Catholic Ireland was a violent, brutal regime that existed – among many other reasons - to dehumanise, torture and inflict as much pain as possible on women. The church sexualised us from no age through instilling notions of modesty and chastity in us. They then shamed us and hid us away when we did have sex and the evidence was there to prove it. While in hiding they tortured us in laundries and traumatised us in Mother and Baby Homes.

Why YOU need to get out and March for Choice on the 30th Sept

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We are in the 4th decade of the struggle to get rid of the 8th amendment - no one under the age of 52 could even have voted for it.  But this year should be the year and that's why everyone should be on the March for Choice in Dublin, September 30th.

Buy a Ticket! Dublin Bus to Belfast RALLY FOR CHOICE

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Online ticket sales have now closed. The bus will be leaving Hugh Lane Gallery at 10 am sharp. Please message the WSM Facebook page or email activity@wsm.ie if you wish to be placed on a standby list in the event there are any cancellations in the run up to the Rally.

  • Tickets are €10 per person
  • If you cannot attend please consider making a donation to help us subsidise tickets for those on low or no income.
  • Meeting for the bus at the Hugh Lane Gallery on Parnell Square at 10am sharp, returning at 7.00pm
  • Click on the button, enter the amount corresponding to the number of tickets you want: 1 ticket = €10, two tickets = €20 etc.
  • Be sure to leave your Name, Email, and Mobile Phone Number so we can contact you, with confirmation and updates. (Please allow time for confirmation).
  • If making a donation, just enter “donation” in the address field

For any queries contact: activity@wsm.ie
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Co. Clare mobilises for the March for Choice - interviews from Ennistymon

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We caught up with abortion rights activists in Clare as they held a public information stall in Ennistymon, they will be running buses to the Sept 30th March for Choice in Dublin. [Video]

We will march for choice. Will you?

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Ask yourself a question.

A relative, a friend, a neighbour, a co-worker or a stranger on a bus says to you that they were pregnant but exercised their right to choose and secured a termination. Would you then imprison them for 14 years? If you wouldn’t jail someone for exercising their right to choose, would you want to be associated in any way with their jailors?

If the answer to the above is ‘no’, then you might consider joining the 6th Annual March for Choice will take place in Dublin this Saturday, 30th September. We anarchists of the Workers Solidarity Movement will be assembling with thousands of other pro-choice people at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square from 1.30pm, before we march on Dáil Éireann at 2pm.

It was the X-case which politicised me - and I'll march again on the 30th

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Choice is a political issue.  I emigrated to the UK in the 80’s and when I returned to Dublin it was the X-case which politicised me.  It was incomprehensible to me as a 23 year old that this young 14 year old girl who had been raped was not allowed to leave the country.  
 
I was not the only one who felt strongly about this, and there were massive marches asking for the young woman to be let go to the UK to have an abortion. That was 1992 [in the picture I am there holding the placard on the left]. I felt like I had to leave this place to come back and see it with new eyes, and see how dysfunctional it truly was, and remains. 

Kilkenny shows Youth Defence the door

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Saturday 22 July and Youth Defence, the real bottom of the barrel of the anti-choice campaign, brought their roadshow to Kilkenny. They have embarrassing historical ties with neo-nazis and plenty of shady American dollars to pay for their slick corporate stall, glossy flyers and huge banners, mostly featuring mangled foetuses and scare tactic slogans.

George Hook, Leo and the place of women in patriarchal-capitalist Ireland

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Over the last few days we’ve been given a couple of direct insights into the minds of our political elite, in particular in relation to how women are to be viewed in modern Ireland. On his daily talk show last Friday, rugby pundit, and right-wing mouth piece George Hook went on a three minute tirade, moralising about rape of a young woman in the UK. The outcome of his spiel: blaming a rape victim for being assaulted while unconscious.

Looking back at 2016 March for Choice and forward to 30 Sept

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As it’s been almost a year since March for Choice 2016, I decided to reflect on what was to be the first of many protests against the State over my right to choose.

Without much luck considering the weather and bus strike circumstances, it was a wonderful day to be among the 25,000 that marched the streets of Dublin on a rainy Saturday afternoon in September. There was a certain atmosphere that was indescribable, among the thousands of flags, posters, chants, smiles, flares, megaphones and umbrellas it was day that I will never forget. On a National level the March for Choice was something much needed in the media to refocus attention on repealing the Eighth Amendment. With Pro-Life campaigns in full swing, between leaflets at churches and canvassers at my door, a show of strength - of young people like me mobilising, was needed to make it very clear that they are the receding tide.

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