I’ve reported already on Poland’s slide back into the Dark Ages. Directed by the powerful Catholic Church, the Polish government, nominally run by the Law and Justice Party (PiS), is trying to ban all abortions, regardless of whether they endanger the mother’s life, involve a deformed or medically doomed fetus, or result from rape or incest. Now, however, the women of Poland are rising up to protest their new retrograde government. As reported by several sources (I’ve used BuzzFeed for mine), women in a church in Gdansk walked out en masse as their priest read a letter from the pulpit supporting the total abortion ban. Some of the men accompanied them to the exit. Click below to go to the video at the Guardian:
BuzzFeed also reports widespread protests throughout Poland by women, many brandishing coathangers as a symbol of the illegal abortions reported to be pervasive in the country. Here are a few photos:
And Grania sent me several links to a new development in Northern Ireland, where, according to the Torygraph and the Independent (see also here), a 21-year-old woman was convicted of having an abortion, or rather inducing one herself by ordering the abortifacient drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. She miscarried two years ago, when she was 19 and 10-12 weeks pregnant. She wanted to do what most women in Ireland and Northern Ireland do when wanting an abortion: make the hop to England to get a legal abortion. But this woman couldn’t afford that, and the pills were cheaper.
Given that it’s part of the UK, Northern Ireland would seem to have laws similar to those of the rest of the UK, where according to the 1967 Abortion Act the procedure is legal; but that’s not the case. Like the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland allows abortion only when the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life, either medically or psychologically. This is likely due to the greater influence of the Catholic church in both Irelands than in Scotland, Wales, and England.
At any rate, abortion remains illegal in Northern Ireland (and the Republic) if it only endangers the mother’s health, or even when it involves a deformed fetus or results from rape or incest. That makes the Irish island as backwards as Poland.
This is the first case in which a woman has actually been convicted and sentenced to jail in Northern Ireland for having an abortion. Although she was given a three-month jail term, it was suspended. But it’s an awful precedent, and a stain on the UK.
One of the saddest parts of this story is not just her sentencing for, in effect, being too poor to get a legal abortion, but also how she was found out. As the Independent reports, “Her housemates found blood-stained items and foetal remains in a bin and reported her to the police.” What kind of housemates are those?
The inequities of women in different parts of the UK are appalling, and it’s time to do something about it. From the Independent:
The especially shocking element of Northern Ireland’s abortion ban is how Westminster supports it through its silence. Regardless of Northern Ireland’s contested constitutional status, when it comes to human rights law we are just as much British citizens as women living in Blackpool or Birmingham. Westminster could easily overturn the abortion ban by passing legislation in the House of Commons. There is a particularly clear case for doing this as a High Court found in November that Northern Ireland’s abortion ban breaches international human rights law.
The two sides in Northern Ireland:
I’m always amazed at how a group of nonreproductive religious men think they have a right to tell women what to do with their bodies. Granted, they think abortion is murder, but that’s their own religious view, and other faiths, as well as nonbelievers, feel otherwise. I beseech them in the womb of Christ to think it possible that they may be mistaken.
I remember reading about a case wherein a girl form North Ireland was prevented from leaving the country (she was a minor) to get an abortion for an anencephalic fetus. A very severe case, the article basically said that the baby didn’t have a head (in most cases anencephalics have a brainstem, but not cerebellum)(though the journalist could have been confused).
I could dig the article up but I am lazy today and I simply don’t have the spoons!
“a girl form North Ireland”
– let me tell you what a difference a few letters makes
– Coming from Northern Ireland myself, what you have just done (deliberately or otherwise) is state which side of the political divide you fall on. Avoiding using ‘Northern Ireland’ and instead calling it ‘North Ireland’ is to refuse to acknowledge that that country is a part of the UK. Instead, North Ireland merely describes a geographical region of the island of Ireland, which of course is what nationalists prefer.
– you may have meant a northern part of the RoI, but you capitalised ‘N’orth, making it part of a name. If I had to bet, I would say your choice is innocent, you actually did mean Northern Ireland, but now you know !
I apologise as I innocently got it wrong. My memory clearly failed me.
I found the story which is rather obscure:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6618911.stm
Please accept my apology, as I am naive and ignorant regarding the proper terms and had no idea that it might cause offense. Canada here, btw.
Nicely done, Cindy… 😉
Calm down. I’m sure Cindy will be sure to include a trigger warning for you in any future Ireland-related comments.
To clarify (maybe?) from Cindy/ nurnord’s exchange,
– the case under discussion was of a girl from Ireland (Republic of ; also known as Eire, chez Grainne, the state capitalled at Dublin, and the home of Guiness). After legal blather, bad things happened.
“Northern Ireland” is the name of a component part of the (current) “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern ireland” ; as such, the name encapsulates the 1922 “peace settlement” between the government of the British Empire and the successful rebels of Ireland. If you want to, you could choose this as the start of the collapse of the British Empire (West Pondians may choose 1774 or so as a start date; let the historians fight. Sediment will bury them.).
-If you are talking to a person from “Northern Ireland”, describing it as “Northern Ireland” may induce apoplexy due to Republican sentiments (“It’s ULSTER, dammit!”), or induce apoplexy due to not considering it completely part of Britain (“Are we not as British as London??”)
That’s enough walking into the minefield. I’ll get on my PoGo stick to exit.
I read that, and none of it makes any sense!
😛
I have seen folks talk about ‘the troubles’ on various forums, and they may as well be speaking in ancient Greek. My tiny Canadian mind just can’t parse it!
(Some of my ancestors are from Ireland too)
It is all moderately insane. It would have been so much simpler if either the Rebels had succeeded in kicking the English entirely out, or if Lloyd-George had succeeded in his threat to bring “terrible war” (if I recall the words correctly) down upon the rebels. No-one was happy about the 6-counties solution, and it remains an open question whether it actually reduced the overall amount of blood shed – between the 3000-odd in the Troubles, and the 2000 – 4000 killed in the Civil War.
Well if she had said Northern Ireland, that would have indicted your part of the world – Northern Ireland – in this appalling story.
But it seems it was the Republic that’s guilty in this case.
It is – usually – legal for Irish women to travel to the UK – that is, England or Wales, not Northern Ireland! – to get an abortion. If they can afford it, of course.
There is a small UK charity – Abortion Support Network – which assists with funds in individual cases, for both Northern Irish and Republic women. (You can google it). I occasionally bung them a few bucks as a practical way of giving the fingers to the pro-lifers.
Oh, here:
https://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/
cr
yeah my bad, my memory totally failed me and I really should have checked prior to posting
I got it all wrong!
Since both countries have very similar barbaric laws, I don’t think your trivial mistake** was of any great significance.
cr
(** That will get me shot by both sides… 😉
Someone was offended on the internet!
This stuff is serious business!
What is most insidious about “offense” culture is that intent often does not matter. I had a brain fart and posted what I could remember. My memory was wrong. So what right? Mistakes happen, and your average person cannot be expected to thoroughly research everything regarding said subject prior to posting an offhand comment.
Yet some folks are determined to take offense and to read sinister motives where there are none. I often apologize to these types, who invariably get even angrier. Which makes me wonder if they just like being angry.
Unfortunately, this person has not returned to either graciously or un-graciously accept my apology
A fine song by … damn, who was it … Magazine
A story told me by a friend from Ulster – a Protestant (by birth and address) Republican – is of the Thought Police catching him one evening in No Man’s Land and demanding to know if he were a Protestant or a Catholic, to which he replied “Atheist”.
Hard thinking followed by the leader of the gang of Mutaween at this unexpectedly non-binary option. Then the solution : “but are you a Protestant Atheist, or a Catholic Atheist”.
It’s no surprise that this gentleman became known as “Dave the Mad Irishman.” As well as “The Guinness Bucket”. Last heard of teaching English to Spaniards. So, if you meet a Spaniard with a thick Ulster accent and an unhealthy liking for the black stuff, you know who taught him.
A guy is walking down a street in Belfast one night when he feels something hard in the small of his back and a voice says “Are ye Catholic or Protestant?”.
So he thinks quickly and says “Neither, I’m Jewish.”
“Oh bad luck, ye just met the only Arab in Belfast!”
cr
“Father O’Reilley?”
Gross as it might be, perhaps parading pictures of things like that may help some people realise certain truths.
Especially foolish notions of any kind of ‘god’s perfect creations’
I have. Of parasitic twins and hydatidiform moles too.
And I have come to the conclusion, that yes, religion is poison. People believe delusional things.
It is murder to abort an anencephalic fetus or to even harvest the organs of one once born. Why you ask? Because they have cute faces (if the head is covered) and a beating heart. The ‘soul’, if you will, is in the beating heart. I was accused of being a ‘vicious psycopath’ when I stated that no moral harm was done when a brainless neonate had it’s organs harvested to save a dying baby.
I have explained the science at length to these delusionists – that the ‘self’ is in the brain, not the body, and that if there is no brain, there is no person. Didn’t make a difference. However, these folks don’t share such concern for hydatidiform moles or parasitic twins. Even though both are equally brainless. I think it’s because the mole and the parasitic twin are not ‘cute’. They can be dismissed as mere body parts. Neither has a functional brain. In the end, the result is the same – no seat of consciousness, no personhood. If you lose your brain, or don’t have one, you are not a person. Period.
However, this logic is not applied to zygotes. Even though zygotes do not have brains, they are ‘real people for sure’. So how can a brainless parasitic twin not be a person (even though it is surviving as a fetus, with a host and everything) and a zygote be a person?
In one particularly cray cray exchange, a delusional young woman (her parents are young earth creationists) told me that an IVF doctor who flushed a genetically defective zygote down the drain should be sent to prison for life for the crime of murder because ‘the zygote, if not defective, would have had a long life ahead of it’
These people are fricking delusional and suffering from an inordinate amount of existential angst.
Those Polish women are courageous. It’s a clear middle finger to an institution that is still held in high regard in Poland.
Yeah good on them for walking out of church! I hope they leave their church for good!
I hope so too and I also hope more priests and bishops will see their congregation walking out. I don’t think clerics realize that it’s the message that drive people out of the church.
That video of the walk out in Poland was great. The arrogance of the Catholic church is overwhelming. It’s the same arrogance that any man has who thinks he can dictate to women. It is sickening. It’s like Donald Trump, all the way up to the Pope.
Let us not forget the Indian lady that died due to complications in Ireland, due to not being able to have an abortion…
That was an horrific case. I remember at the time I just couldn’t believe it was happening in a modern First World country.
It’s great to see people in Poland standing up to the Church like this – it’s times like that I wish I was religious so I was there to join them.
This is the sort of thing that always happens when religion gets control. They force their values on others, and manipulate their followers to think what they’re told to think.
Not that it makes it any better, but the problem in NI is not the RCC but the equally benighted Democratic Unionist government. There are some real fruitcakes in this party, including a number of YECs, and they are an embarrassment to the rest of the UK. The minority party in the power-sharing executive, Sinn Fein, would ironically be probably more liberal if they ran the show.
I know it’s cast as men vs. women, but don’t the majority of women in Poland support the abortion ban?
Poland remains the land of origin of Jerry’s beloved bagels (from Polish Jews of course).
What a disappointment that this is still an issue. I hope soon these Catholic countries will become less Catholic and more humane. In my mind it seems that, in time, this will happen.
I’d comment on how utterly essential every scrap of potentially human flesh is, but I’m trying to chew part of my fingernail off. A door-to-door Catholic is trying to stress how important every reproducing cell is.
When I’ve finished, I’ll put on the #Meaning of Life# video, and join in with THAT song while having a wank.
The best musical song-and-dance number ever, IMO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk
cr
“Westminster could easily overturn the abortion ban by passing legislation in the House of Commons.”
There are probably good reasons from recent history why Westminster doesn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.
cr
“I’m always amazed at how a group of nonreproductive religious men think they have a right to tell women what to do with their bodies.”
Unfortunately, as evidenced by your bottom-most illustration, so do some moronic women. (The nasty side of me would love to see them knocked up and see if they feel safer then…)
cr
My own experience growing up in Ireland was that those who were highly religious (and therefore more likely to try to enforce their moral code on others) were more commonly women rather than men.
Obviously the hierarchy were all men but the rank and file religious orders and laypeople were predominantly women- something that was reflected in the proportions attending church services.
As Jerry likes to point out (me too) there is significant correlation between social & economic insecurity and degree of religiosity. Women are more oppressed than men in most theocratic cultures.
Greater religiosity of women is certainly an interesting issue. It seems religion has a somewhat different effect on women than men.
“the reduced incidence of depression applies only to women. Men who are regular churchgoers are in fact more likely to become depressed.”
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/04/this_is_your_brain_on_religion_uncovering_the_science_of_belief/
This book explores the issue and there are chapter summaries here:
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608102.001.0001/acprof-9780199608102
The ethics centre I worked at while at CMU was working on updating their “Issue of Abortion in America” from a CD-ROM to a web application while I was there. So, being the infrastructure guy I took a look at the stuff out of curiousity. They showed figures (presumably from PP or the like) that being opposed to abortion does not stop people from being hypocritical. Alas I forget details.
“I’m always amazed at how a group of nonreproductive religious men think they have a right to tell women what to do with their bodies. Granted, they think abortion is murder, but that’s their own religious view, and other faiths, as well as nonbelievers, feel otherwise. I beseech them in the womb of Christ to think it possible that they may be mistaken.”
The difference between Catholics and the rest on the issue of abortion is that the first believe that abortion should be illegal from the beginning i.e. the conception, and the latter from the beginning of second trimester.
That is, when we are talking about a healthy, developing foetus.
Good point
To which ‘rest’ do you refer? I think abortion should be entirely legal (at the absolute discretion of the woman concerned) up until the point the baby is delivered. Although obviously, for medical reasons, the earlier the better.
cr
Sorry, my point being, the ‘rest’ (which presumably includes me) do not necessarily agree with Scientifik’s characterisation of our views. (And doubtless many of the rest won’t agree with mine).
cr
Well then your moral intuition is at odds with abortion laws in many (most?) countries that make the abortion of healthy human foetuses illegal passed a certain stage of pregnancy.
I’ve used the example of German abortion law according to which the abortion of a healthy foetus is illegal after the first trimester (i.e. after the 12th week).
Interestingly, as I’ve just learned, in Sweden, abortion is illegal after the 18th week of pregnancy.
So who is mistaken here? Germany or Sweden?
Should abortion be made illegal from the conception? From the second trimester, after the 18th week of pregnancy or some other week?
Or are these countries all mistaken and they should abandon all abortion laws completely?
Well obviously the ‘rest’ as you put it are not unanimous on when abortion should be illegal. And you did not specify who you meant by ‘the rest’.
Which was my point.
cr
It’s hard to get absolute unanimity on any subject with 7 billion people on the planet, so by ‘the rest’ I meant ‘pretty much the rest’ or ‘the rest (except some outliers)’.
BTW, do you know of any democratic country in which abortion is “entirely legal up until the point the baby is delivered”?
It would appear that ‘some outliers’ include India (20 weeks), Netherlands (22), Singapore and the UK (24).
But really, the laws are all over the map – see this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law
I never suggested that my views were shared by any country’s laws. But then your words ‘Catholics and the rest’ implies that you were referring to people, not countries. I’m a people and part of ‘the rest’ and I manifestly do not subscribe to your implication that ‘the rest believe abortion should be illegal from the beginning of the second trimester’.
cr
“It would appear that ‘some outliers’ include India (20 weeks), Netherlands (22), Singapore and the UK (24).”
These countries are not ‘outliers’ as they all ban abortion of healthy foetuses after a certain stage of pregnancy (whether it’s after 10 weeks, 12, 18 or 24 is another matter which only speaks to the apparent arbitrariness of the law).
And that was my original point. Catholics think that performing abortion on healthy foetuses should be illegal from the time of conception, whereas most others believe it should be illegal only after the pregnancy reaches a certain stage (e.g. 12 weeks).
Canada
In reply to the question about any country that allows abortion right up to delivery:
The answer is Canada. Because there is NO law. With NO law comes discretion of doctors and the pregnant women, but that’s it. Again the answer is Canada. Look it up.
Northern Ireland is indeed one nutty part of the UK in which to live but Jerry isn’t quite right to think the opposition here is all from the Catholic side. We have our very own evangelical Protestant red-necks who are probably the most strident prolife advocates you are ever likely to meet.
I’m pretty sure the Catholic hierarchy approve of this – it’s just there’s no need for them to be in the driving seat when the Protestant fundies are already doing the driving.
A comparison to the Southern US states is apt.
Sorry, but why am I envisioning Paisley pere in full apoplexy when you say this?
I guess most would disagree with me, but I think that allowing abortion should not depend on the medical status of the fetus. Personally, I think that I’d abort a generally wanted pregnancy if the fetus had been diagnosed with something. However, if we give the mother rights over her uterus, these rights should be valid even if the fetus is perfect; and if we decide that a (let’s say) 38-week healthy fetus is too late to abort, I find it difficult to defend the right to abort a 38-week malformed fetus, unless we also grant the parents a right to euthanize a full-term newborn with the same malformation.
“I guess most would disagree with me, but I think that allowing abortion should not depend on the medical status of the fetus.”
Personally I think that it would be a moral thing to do to abort a malformed foetus suffering from some fatal genetic condition as it would spare the baby the needless suffering. But I would strongly object to performing an abortion on a healthy 38-week foetus. The medical status of the foetus is critical here IMO.
But I would ask you to consider yet another situation:
a) A woman in the UK aborts her healthy foetus during her 24th week of pregnancy, which is allowed under the UK abortion law. I understand that under the UK law a 24th-week foetus is regarded as not human-enough at this point, and therefore the abortion procedure can be carried out here. We think of such aborted foetus as “foetal remains.”
b) A woman in her 24th week of pregnancy is attacked by a thug on the street who beats her mercilessly during the robbery, leading to a miscarriage of her healthy 24-week foetus.
Should the criminal accused of this crime be charged any differently if he caused a miscarriage of a 28th-week foetus vs the 24th-week one?
No. Because it is a crime against the woman in both examples.