Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
Maternity Care
Island of No Consent - Maternity Care and Bodily Autonomy in Ireland
Date: Tue, 2015-04-28 20:50
On the last day of August 2014, in a ruling the country and the media barely noticed, Mr Justice Ryan in the High Court in Kerry found against Ciara Hamilton and for the HSE in an utterly terrifying moment for every person becoming pregnant or giving birth in Ireland from here on out. Ciara Hamilton had taken a case against the Health Service Executive after the birth of her second child, during which a midwife had, without obtaining consent, broken her waters, leading to an umbilical cord prolapse and an emergency caesarean section.
The breaking of waters during labour, in medical terms, amniotomy or Artificial Rupture of Membranes (ARM), is not recommended best practice precisely because it can lead to a cord prolapse, which is a serious emergency when giving birth as it cuts off the blood flow and air supply to the baby. If the person giving birth is a Strep B carrier, as Ciara Hamilton was, it can also carry an increased risk of Strep B transferring to the newborn and causing serious damage to the baby, as happened to Ciara Hamilton’s child. It is listed as a Do Not Do under NICE recommendations. Despite this, and despite ARM being known to carry dangers and risks to both birthing woman and baby, it is still a widely carried out procedure in many Irish maternity hospitals. In the case of Ciara Hamilton’s birth, it was a procedure carried out by a midwife without seeking consent to do so.
Our Hospitals: Don't Give the Maternity Hospital to the Nuns - Holles Street Protest!
Date: Tue, 2017-04-25 10:59
Protests took place across Ireland Saturday 22nd April to protest the plan by Health Simon Harris to give the new maternity hospital, which will cost 300 million to build, to the same nuns who ran the Magdeline laundaries! The Sisters of Charity ran the Drumcondra and Sean MacDermott Street laundaries where expectant and recent mothers were essentially imprisoned and required to provide free labour that the numns profited from.
The political and personal landscape of choice in Ireland
Date: Fri, 2017-03-31 12:00
It is all but impossible, both in theory and in practice, to legally obtain an abortion on the island of Ireland, both north and south of the imaginary border that divides this island. It is completely impossible to safely and legally obtain an abortion anywhere in Ireland; the legal framework in the south specifically requires that in order to obtain an abortion without being criminalised for so doing, the woman who needs it must be ill enough to die; thus it is rendered impossible for her to be safe in access to legal abortion. 