Workers Solidarity Movement

There are times when you walk into a room, and you sense that this is the exact space that you should be, something special is about to take place. It was that way, when Solidarity Times attended the launch of the Together for Yes campaign in the Pillar Room of the Rotunda Hospital last Thursday [22nd of March]. The room was filling up fast and there was excited chatter in all quarters. You need a crowd, and progress and movements come from crowds assembled and pushing in a direction. Together for Yes, is as broad an alliance as I have ever witnessed for a campaign, and all the disparate groups where represented, covering a spectrum that ran from activists, feminists, anarchists, socialists, republicans, through to the most established of establishment political parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael included.

Together for Yes is a broad alliance, very broad because it unites all of the people who see this law for what it is, and the time has come to address it, by repealing it. This is issue which has blighted this island, and will continue to do so, even after we win the vote to repeal the 8th amendment, as we cannot forget about the active denial of reproductive rights that exists in Norther Ireland. But in the room last Thursday, the atmosphere crackled with static, there was anticipation to get this started, to enact the campaign, and to repeal the 8th amendment, to move towards free safe medical reproductive care for people in the republic of Ireland.

We've seen a number of Irish journalists wondering if Cambridge Analytica style tactics could be part of repeal referendum. In fact they already are and have been for over a year - we are going to demonstrate this in what follows.

A few thoughts on the start of the #repealthe8th campaign. Commentators who thought the anti-choice side were better organised because they went full throttle faster should reconsider - how much damage have they done to themselves with fake stories, fake 100s crowds & neo-nazi smears. At this stage they must be wishing they had done & said nothing over the last week & instead focused on fact checking & claims that could stand 30 seconds scrutiny. If you are pro-choice you should reconsider anything presenting the campaigns as if it was a apolitical horse race - focus on the issues and not on performance.

Saturday March 10th saw an anti-choice march pass through Dublin, part of their campaign to try to maintain the status quo where pregnant people and doctors can be jailed for 14 years for taking abortion pills in this country while others are denied control of their own maternity care. Polls show that few people support this position and its ‘let women die’ implications so the anti-choice campaign is trying to create the fiction of mass support in the hope that people will be more inclined to vote No.

Aware of this, WSM decided to put together a team to go out and document the march for ourselves including physically counting everyone who marched and using other techniques that give a good estimate of the numbers marching. Below we will bring you through the results of each of these counts and estimates but the headline item is that when the organisers claimed 100k had marched this was a blatant lie that we will show is even physically impossible.  We counted 8930 marchers. All of the other methods we used also limited the maximum size of the march to less than 15,000.

On this 8th of March, as part of International Women’s Day, the group Kilkenny for Choice launched its campaign for the upcoming referendum on the 8th amendment of the constitution which currently stands in the way of decriminalising abortion in Ireland.

Early in the afternoon, members of the group set up a stall on the castle parade and were soon joined by workers from local animation studios who had crafted a series of posters and cardboard word bubbles in support of the pro choice campaign. It is always great to see how much can be achieved in a short amount of time when a number of dedicated and talented people get together to promote a cause. The delightful variety of handmade visuals sharply contrasts with the slick, uniform, mass produced imagery of the pro-life campaign.

A large anti-choice march will pass through Dublin today and the organisers will attempt to massively exagerate the number taking part as part of their campaign to keep the hated anti-women 8th amendment.  WSM will be there providing a count of the real numbers of people marching and we would strongly encourage our supporters to retweet and share the results as well as challenging any false exaggerated reporting of the numbers you may see.  Along with the rest of the pro-choice movement we are not mounting a counter-protest this year, we will simply be there to observe and to count.  From 14.00 track @wsmireland on twitter and keep an eye on our Facebook pages, in particular Solidarity Times which will carry a livestream from around 2.15.

Graphic - how many people can be crammed in at rock concert density on Merrion square.

Belfast stood in solidarity with our sisters and comrades in the south as they took to the streets in Dublin and elsewhere to protest for a Repeal of the hated 8th Amendment.  A tiny contingent of protesters from Precious Life turned up to counter the demo and continued with the recent tradition of being massively outnumbered in Belfast.

While the battle to repeal the 8th has been ongoing for years, it is now truly beginning to heat up with a referendum due to be held this summer. The anti-choicers are beginning to panic as they become more anxious that they will lose control over our bodies.

The evening of March 8th evening saw thousands march through Dublin for Internationals Womens Day but also to demand Repeal of the 8th Amendment which bans abortion in Ireland.  The governement have finally been forced to call a referendum to get rid of the 8th - speakers at the rally at the end talked about how this could come about and the formation of a new organisation to joinly campaign for repeal.  Demonstrations and other events took place across Ireland to mark this.

The announcement that there will be a referendum to Repeal the hated 8th amendment is the product of decades of active campaigning.  Pro-choice campaigners built for repeal ever since the referendum was passed in 1983. If at first this seemed like a distant demand now repeal looks by far the most likely outcome in May.  The story of how this happened illustrates how change comes in general.  That is not through elections but through people getting organised to demand that change, regardless of which politicians happen to be running the show in any particular year. 

Strike4Repeal launched in January 2017, it exists currently as an ad hoc group of pro-choice activists, academics, trade unionists, artists and students. We directed a single demand towards the government: a national strike would take place on the 8th March unless a referendum on the 8th Amendment of the Constitution was called.

In December, we in Strike4Repeal came together once more to announce that a second strike action will take place if it becomes clear during Dáil debate that full abortion access will not be legislated for or if there is no straight repeal question on the ballot in the upcoming referendum. [ Video ] [Audio]