Alix O'Neill

Ireland’s abortion referendum and the fight for female equality

Ahead of the abortion referendum in Ireland next week, there’s a newspaper advert doing the rounds on Twitter. Printed in the Irish Daily Star earlier this week, it reads:

“Men protect lives. It is impossible to look away. As a parent, uncle, grandfather we have a bond that can never be broken. Vote No to abortion on demand”

The implication appears to be that women are callous creatures who neither protect lives nor deserve protection. So men have to step in to do so.

Next Friday, Irish voters will be asked if they want to repeal the eighth amendment, which gives unborn foetuses and pregnant women equal right to life. Since 2013, abortions have been allowed but only when the life of the mother is at risk. Ireland has one of the world’s most punitive abortion laws – the maximum penalty for a termination is 14 years behind bars.

It’s odd, isn’t it? That the first country in the world to legalise gay marriage by popular vote should take such a myopic view of what is generally considered an essential part of reproductive healthcare. The referendum is expected to pass, but it has taken years to get to this point. Why? The answer isn’t surprising: abortion concerns the messy business of women’s bodies, and Ireland’s Catholic heritage has contributed to a demonisation of female sexuality which still lingers. Church and State are no longer bedfellows, but the stigma remains.

I grew up in Northern Ireland (part of the UK, yet abortion laws are equally as regressive as south of the border) in the 1990s and went to university in Dublin. Like many of my friends, I knew there could be no open discussion around sex, periods and masturbation. Such things were too earthy, too crude, not what good girls spent their time talking about.

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