Too Loud a Silence 2015: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, hosted by the Abortion Rights Campaign
Reading by author and columnist Katha Pollitt.
The Abortion Rights Campaign invites you to attend “Too Loud a Silence 2015: Reclaiming Abortion Rights” from 7pm – 9:30pm on Friday 20th March 2015 in The Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square West, Dublin 1. Tickets are €10 (Concessions/ARC members – donations at the door) and can be booked via Eventbrite.
This event forms part of ARC’s ongoing “Too Loud a Silence” campaign, seeking to remove stigma from discussions about abortion.
In 1973, the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade legalised abortion in the United States. Yet forty years later, Pollitt argues “abortion is still a word that is said with outright hostility”. Silence and stigma make the medical procedure so remote and radioactive that it’s removed from the world of the everyday, turning an act that is normal and necessary into something shameful and secretive.
In Ireland both North and South, it is anti-choice rhetoric that has dominated politics for decades now. Despite the fact that bodily autonomy is a basic right, abortion is still stigmatised, the right to access is increasingly restricted, and women and girls who seek abortion services are criminalised in many parts of the world. In “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights”, Pollitt takes on the personhood argument, reaffirms the priority of a woman’s life and health, and discusses why terminating a pregnancy can be a force for good for women, families, and society.
The Abortion Rights Campaign have invited Pollitt to share insights from her new book “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights”, and discuss the relevance of its arguments in an Irish context with guest panellists. The panel will be facilitated by academic, activist and founding member of Alliance for Choice Northern Ireland, Goretti Horgan.
Katha Pollitt is an American feminist poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry. Her writing focuses on political and social issues, including abortion rights, racism, welfare reform, feminism and poverty. Politt is best known for her bimonthly column “Subject to Debate” in The Nation. Her writing is also featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Ms., The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Mother Jones and The London Review of Books.
Goretti Horgan has been active in the fight for abortion rights in Ireland since 1980, in the South with the Women’s Right to Choose Group, and the Anti Amendment Campaign and, since 1986, in the North where she is a founder-member of Alliance for Choice. She is a member of the Socialist Workers Party and a lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Ulster.
Carol Hunt is a journalist, a mother, a feminist and an atheist- not necessarily in that order. She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. She’s recently highlighted “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights” and other works by Pollitt in a piece which appeared in the Irish Examiner, calling for a shift in Ireland’s national conversation about abortion towards recognizing the positive social impacts that are achieved when women gain access.
Angela Coraccio is a founding member of the Abortion Rights Campaign. She has also led on the Share Your Abortion Stories project and was a longtime member of the Dublin anarcha-feminist publishing collective, RAG, which published a yearly magazine and held open discussions on a variety of feminist issues. She is currently offering a series of writing workshops to facilitate women in exploring and sharing their abortion stories.
Akidwa will have a speaker also.
Copies of ” Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights ” will not be on sale on the night but can be purchased in advance from online vendors. We will have Tee shirts (€10) Mugs (€7) Tote bags (€7) wall planners (€5) on sale on the night, ARC members get a €2 discount on everything (cash sales only).
Feel free to stay for a drink and a chat after 9.30pm
Event Information:
7pm – 9:30pm
20th March 2015
The Teachers Club
36 Parnell Square West
Dublin 1
Tickets: €10 (concessions/ARC members – donations at the door)
