Here is a simple break down of why we need to repeal the 8th amendment of the constitution. It is by no means all of the reasons.
- The 8th Amendment equates the life of a woman to that of an embryo.
- The vast majority of women who want and need abortions are unable to access them in Ireland under interpretations of this law.
- Women have already died in Ireland having been denied life-saving abortion procedures.
- At least 150,000 women have travelled to other countries to procure abortions since 1980.
- Thousands of women are unable to travel for abortion services due to family, legal status, financial situation, or health.
- People who procure abortion within the country risk a 14 year jail term. Doctors can be jailed too.
- The majority of people in Ireland support much wider access to abortion than is permitted under the 8th Amendment.
- The life and health of a pregnant woman has a much greater value than our constitution places on it.
There are hundreds of thousands more reasons to repeal the 8th. Each of those 150,000+ reasons voted with their feet and travelled for abortion.
http://www.thejournal.ie/what-is-the-eight-amendment-abortion-1625596-Aug2014/
https://www.ifpa.ie/Hot-Topics/Abortion/Public-Opinion
Surely the horror of a constitution that doesn’t allow a woman control over her own life once she is pregnant and threatens her with 14 years in prison if she takes back that control doesn’t need a list? But if you feel one is needed could you maybe use simpler language, as soon as I read “embryo” and “procure” I thought of bloody church banners and lawyers and even equate just means the same as. Good luck with the campaigning, as a woman who emigrated 55 years ago to find freedom I do so hope that soon women in Ireland will be able to claim their bodies as their own.
Ann- help us spread the word about the repeal the 8th campaign with other Irish Immigrants like you! Check out https://www.facebook.com/events/1028438840545307/ and get involved to help spread the word and put pressure on Ireland to CHANGE!
I think the first point should be rephrased as; “it equates the right to choice of a woman with the right to life of an embryo”, which is actually a much more contentious issue.
This issue will be extremely divisive for people who fundamentally believe in the greatest possible development in women’s rights, yet who hold equally fundamental beliefs that unborn children, from at least relatively early in pregnancy, have a right to live.
The answer to this is simple.
Whether you believe in abortion or not, the fundamental foundation is the right to choose. It is unfair for someone to deny you that right irrelevant of whether you agree with the alternatives or not.
A woman should be able to do what she wants with her own body, the baby could not survive out of the body so in that case it is part of the woman’s body and she should have the right to choose what she wants to do with her own body