referendum

Here are my thoughts on the upcoming referendum to repeal the 8th amendment of our constitution.

For those of you reading this from outside Ireland, this coming Friday May 25th Irish people are being asked to vote on whether or not to remove a clause from our constitution which grants equal right to life to an unborn child from the moment of conception and its mother. The present legal position is therefore that it is lawful for a pregnancy to be terminated only where it poses a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother, including a risk of suicide.  Those voting No wish this clause to remain in the constitution, those voting Yes wish it to be removed. Should it be removed, the government has outlined planned legislation which would allow abortion up to 12 weeks and at later gestations for specific medical reasons.

I have avoided publicly engaging in the debate around this issue for a long time because, if I’m really honest, I felt so conflicted about it. It felt like I had to ‘pick a side’ and neither side sat entirely right with me. In many ways my feelings on the matter aligned more with the No than the Yes campaign and I didn’t feel there was anywhere I could voice my doubts and uncertainties openly. So I stayed quiet, read a lot, talked with Brian a lot, thought a lot. But with the 25^th of May fast approaching and a sense that people like me may still be undecided, uncertain or afraid to ask I thought I would write this post.

I can identify quite clearly with some of what the No side is saying. I’ve carried 4 pregnancies and never felt these were just bundles of cells, or embryos or foetuses. They felt like small spirits inside me from the get go. When I lost one of them, I didn’t mourn the loss of a clump of cells, I mourned the loss of that little spark. She was a person to me.

I am uncomfortable with abortion for an unwanted pregnancy, I have spoken to nurses who have worked in the UK and seen things they would prefer to forget.

I do believe that every child should have an equal right to life.

I would like to think that we could create a nation where sex education, support for women, education for women and men, boys and girls, contraception would reduce the number of pregnancies that women find too hard to carry.

But here’s the thing. The more stories I heard, the more experiences I read, it became clearer and clearer to me that these are MY choices, MY opinions, MY reality. What is right and best for me and for someone else may very well be entirely different. Every circumstance is different. Every woman is different. And what became as clear as the light of day was that the constitution is no place for an opinion.

The more I’ve read the more obvious it has become to me that despite all of the uncertainties that I personally have, the 8^th Amendment is bad law that stops good people, good doctors, nurses, midwives, mothers, fathers, men and women make the best decisions they can in awful circumstances. It is literally killing women. It is not preventing abortions. It is merely doing what our nation has done over and over again, turning our back on an issue that we would prefer did not exist. That same mentality has put women into laundries, sold children across the globe, buried them in septic tanks, left them open to abuse after abuse after abuse. It does not protect our nation’s children, because it does not give autonomy, freedom and support to the women that carry them.

Life is not simple. It is not clean. Take me. Despite believing I am extinguishing a life, despite being  uncomfortable with the idea of abortion, if I got pregnant again I would most likely have to abort it. I have been told in no uncertain terms that the risk to my life would be extremely high. I have three small children. I do not want to leave them. With the 8^th amendment in place I would have to wait until I was walking that knife-edge between life and death before I could be saved. The chances of that baby ever living would be very small and it’s death would be more painful and more difficult as a result of that wait. I would have to get on that boat or plane.

The fact that my country currently doesn’t trust me enough to make the right decision for me and my family and doesn’t have the compassion to care for me as I go on that journey, is wrong.

This is not a black and white issue. I believe there are two lives we are talking of. But life is not easy, hard decisions, heartbreaking decisions have to be made and are currently being made every day in this country, repeal or no repeal. Surely it is the least we can do to offer care and compassion, support and expert medical care to the women and men of our island when they need it most.

That is why I am voting YES to repeal the 8^th  Amendment of our constitution on May 25.

EDIT: moments after posting this I read an article my the ever erudite and eloquent Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times. He says what I have been trying to spit out far better. Click here to read his words.