ULA Statement: Dáil must support Daly’s X Case Bill November 27, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
United Left Alliance
Statement – 27-11-2012
Dáil must support Daly’s X Case Bill
Shatter opens debate for repeal of 8th Amendment
The Expert Group Report on abortion, like the three previous reports on abortion in Ireland, has recommended legislation as the only robust way to implement the 1992 Ruling of the Supreme Court and the requirements of the European Court of Human Rights. Yet the government continues to prevaricate over introducing the necessary legislation.
The legislative process needs to start now. That can be done by supporting the Daly Bill on Wednesday. This would deal with the concerns expressed in the Report that legislation would take a long time to put through.
The government, and Labour in particular, have no excuse for not supporting this Bill. It deals with all of the issues raised in the Expert Group Report, including provision for enhancement by Regulation or Statutory Instrument. If there are any shortcomings, they can be dealt with at Committee Stage.
Legislation for X is a first step to providing legal abortion in Ireland. Minister Shatter however, has opened the debate on the need to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. He stated in the Dáil that Art. 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution means that the right to health of a woman is a qualified right. As Minister with responsibility for equality, he pointed out that no such qualification applies to men.
The United Left Alliance believes that the distinction between the life and health of a woman as grounds for abortion must end; and that the choices a woman wishes to make about her fertility must be hers alone. To that end, the United Left Alliance will campaign for the repeal of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution and legislation for free, safe and legal abortion in Ireland.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
I think it goes without saying that the Bill will get hammered, but I just hope there are a good few more TDs willing to back the motion this time around, which will help build pressure on the government to do something on the issue.
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IRSP on the Right to Choose
30th November 2012
At the Irish Republican Socialist Party’s first Ard Fheis in 1975, we were the first political party in Ireland to support a woman’s right to control her own body and choose abortion, a position unanimously reaffirmed by delegates to this year’s Ard Fheis. We call for immediate legislation to make abortion available, free of charge and on demand, through the health services on both sides of the border. We believe that any position short of that is insufficient and reactionary in 2012.
Historically, women were viewed as the property of first their fathers and then their husbands. They had no authority over their own bodies, and they were taught that their highest duty was to reproduce, regardless of their own wishes. This view persists today, where paternalistic states, supported by reactionary religious bodies, pass laws to control what women can and cannot do with their own bodies. The right to choose abortion is the right of a woman to have sovereignty over her own body, and to make decisions and choices about her body. Neither church nor state has a role to play in regulating women’s bodies.
We believe it is a sad indictment of Irish society in 2012 that a woman’s right to choose is still being denied. Every week almost one hundred women are forced to leave this island under a cloak of secrecy to receive a medical procedure that should easily be carried out, free from society’s imposed shame, in any hospital in Ireland.
The death of Savita Halappanavar in Galway in October should never have happened. Despite her desperate appeals for an abortion during a miscarriage, she was denied the procedure and she died. We support a woman’s right to choose abortion. It’s not enough to only theoretically allow it when the woman’s life is at risk. If a woman’s right to control her body and make medical decisions is to mean anything, she must have the right to choose abortion under any circumstances.
We also believe that contraception must be available to all women, free and on demand, so that they have complete control over their reproductive choices. To those who oppose both abortion and contraception, we say that you are hypocrites whose anti-woman agenda is plain to see.
The right to choose an abortion and determine one’s own future is part of a much larger struggle to empower women to take control of their own destinies and destroy the contradictions in Irish society that do not allow women to legally choose an abortion. Women must have this choice. We must struggle to win this right, and redress the imbalance in power between the genders, as these are battles in our war to separate church and state, and create a truly democratic, equal, and secular society.
As revolutionary socialists, we recognize that this requires more than just reform, it also requires a revolutionary change in society. Full gender liberation for all people can only happen if existing social institutions are abolished and the archaic values they represent are swept aside with them.
Reactionary religious institutions have exerted their influence to oppose the reproductive rights of women, be it contraception or abortion. Women must be free from the imposition of reactionary beliefs, and the state should not exist to impose religious diktat on anyone. An oppressive agenda towards women is very much in play in Ireland, with the Catholic Church, right-wing political parties, and the reactionary elements within Irish society preparing for a battle that, if won, would even further stagnate the struggle for woman’s liberation in Ireland. All progressive forces in Ireland must come together to oppose this reactionary agenda.
The IRSP supports a woman’s right to choose abortion on demand, and we call for legislation on both sides of the border to recognise this right.
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