Irish Pregnancy Counselling Service and other centres were at that stage giving information so that women could come
SUPPLEMENT the church
Ann Conway (People's Democracy, Ireland) to England to get a safe and legal abortion.
What the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) attempted to do then was to bring in a constitutional prohibition which would allow them to legally challenge abortion in the courts. Abortion itself was already illegal in Ireland, but their fear was that this would be changed. They succeeded after one meeting with government ministers in getting a constitutional referendum. That was in 1981, and there was a period of political instability around that time since a number of hunger strike and H-Block candidates had taken seats in Dail, taking a substantial number of votes away from the main bourgeois parties.
The idea for the referendum actually came from an intemational conference of doctors in Dublin
where some American doctors met
with some of our leading obstetricians
Both Ridge and decided they needed to take up the amendment campaign. They decided that rather than leave SPUC to front the campaign it should be headed by professionals and 'experts" - people who would appear removed from the issues of sexuality and morality involved.
So the campaign was run essentially by them - trying to give it some kind of human face, pretending that they were really interested in women's rights. The other side of the campaign was weak. The women's movement was involved, but it was mainly taken over by quite reformist sections who didn't want to raise any issues that could be regarded as too feminist or radical. So they never attempted to take on the Church who were backstage using the pulpits as a political platform and encouraging people to vote no.
They didn't have it all their own way. Only 45% of the people tumed SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
out to vote on what was a hotly debated issue - which had school children and youth talking about it. The question of abortion was actually discussed widely, making their victory a rather shallow one since the matter would have had less attention if they had not gone on the offensive.
There was a 3 to 1 vote in favour of the amendment, so we now have a constitutional amendment copperfastened to the constitution, and we will have to remove that if there is ever to be new legislation to permit abortion. Now personally I don't believe that we shall ever see abortion in Ireland until partition has been removed: and it is possible that we will not see divorce in Ireland until the removal of British imperialism and the partition settlement, because the partition is based on the power of the Catholic church. It's based on the political establishment, and the possibility of removing those things can only really arise in the situation where there's a real change to build from. That's not to say that it's not an issue on the agenda for feminists. It certainly is.
During the Amendment Campaign, SPUC spokespeople said they weren't going to touch the women's clinics; they weren't interested in preventing women having abortion information; that they were really only interested in the rights of the unborn; that the situation as it presently existed would not be interfered with. They waited two years before they actually took a legal case against the women's clinics, and I think the fact that they had to wait so long showed that things weren't really going all their way. The courts ruled in favour of SPUC - declaring that clinics were actually helping women to procure abortions in Britain.
Unfortunately, the court judgement was given against a background of defeat in the divorce referendum, and I mention that because, if it had actually been in an earlier stage, the result might have been quite dif ferent. Garret Fitzgerald had actually called for a referendum on the divorce issue. Before the referendum there was something like 70% of the Irish people who were actually in favour of divorce. The government that called the referendum refused to campaign on the issue, completely absented itself from any debate, and let the right wing take over.
The forces who were organising to demand the right to divorce were thoroughly divided, and were not SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
SUPPLEMENT prepared to take on the power of the church. The argu- ment, the defence, was left, as it was in the anti-amendment campaign, to legal experts - to lawyers, doctors, to that par- ticular group. Though it was a debate about women's rights in both instances, but it had little very relationship to the reality of our lives. I think it's just worthwhile reading what was a pretty vi- judgement: CIOUS page after page reiterated the right to life of the unbom. Abortion was seen as wrong and evil in all circumstances. It was said to be contrary to national policy, con- to morality, trary contrary to common law, statute law and the constitution. It went on to state that consequently the right to life of the foetus, the unbor, is afforded statutory protection from the date of its concep- tion. I think Ireland is the only country in Europe in which we actually have that sort of situation. Now that was a real victory for SPUC. The women's movement did respond immediately. but it wasn't a sustained response, principally because the clinics that were involved, against whom the judgement was made, didn't really want any public protest campaign. In fact they weren't too sure if they even wanted to appeal immediately after the judgement: it was a very weak response. That really tended to take the steam out of the women's movement and create some sort of confusion as to where we would go. And of course there wasn't that much sup port coming from the traditional or- ganisations on the left. The trade union movement were opposed to the judgement from the point of view of civil rights, and that was very good. And so was the Irish Council for
LETH-
• ІДЕТЫ НАШЕЙ ЖИВНИ!*
Soviet anti-abortion poster; Children are the flowers of our lives Civil Liberties, the Workers Party, the Labour Party, and the Republican movement: but there wasn't any real concrete support coming through from any of those organisations. The political forces weren't there, in any sense other than much very paper support, so it was left up to the women's movement. With the refusal of the clinics to confront the issue themselves, they backed off.
So it was mainly a small group of feminists who consistently campaigned on the issue, both in Dublin and in Belfast. There were quite good relationships made between women in the North and South in relation to the issue. The students were the main force who actually took up the campaign. They started campaigning on the issue in the colleges, at conferences and and meetings. What we've seen in the last
"the right to life of the foetus, the unborn, is afforded statutory protection from the date of its conception. I think Ireland is the only country in Europe in which we actually have that sort of situation" Page 19
*Obviously the next few months are going to be hard. We hear that Cosmopolitan magazine, which publishes an Irish edition, will no longer carry information on abortion for sale in Ireland" Page 20
Rolsin Conroy (front left) won a High Court action that seperated childless women were entitled to state benefit couple of weeks is that the students' unions who have actually been giving out abortion information to women have been taken to court, and threatened with jail sentences. They actually stated that they were prepared to go to jail, and that they had lists of hundreds of people who were prepared to fill jails behind them.
The problem that we've been confronted with each time is that the fight has always been around court battles: this is the third battle we've had in relation to the courts. it confuses people to have to wait for a judgement before we can decide where to go next. A month ago the High Court decided not to convict the students. Previous to the court hearing they had been saying that people can't go around breaking the law, they can't be giving out information, the rights of the unbor must be protected - and then they saw the mobilisations - that a lot of people were actually coming out supporting the students.
Some Dail deputies, particularly from the Labour Party, some from Fine Gael in an individual capacity gave support; some union bodies passed resolutions and put out a statement. But it was the militancy of the students that pushed it all on. They decided that the judgement was basically in their favour, and that they would continue to give out information until the matter went to the
SUPPLEMENT European Court. SPUC were devastated, and appealed again. Last week it was debated in the Supreme Court, and the background to the hearing was not as positive as it had been six weeks before.
The students made the mistake of trying to deal with the matter simply inside the student movement, not calling on other political forces to give out the information. This is extremely important: I myself have been involved in the defend the clinics campaign, and I work at the Dublin Well Women centre, so I know the reality of what the law means in terms of women not being able to get proper information about abortion.
There was a short debate among the students on whether other or ganisations should give out the information, and ikt was said that if the Labour Party (or for that matter the Republican movement or the trade unions) wanted to give out the information it was up to them: the students would not urge them to do so. But it was not possible for the students alone to maintain their position: they began to become isolated. Some students in the colleges started calling for a referendum, so we now have a situation where in three of the main colleges the students have been voting against giving out abortion information, so the situation has slipped back and ths students are now on the defensive.
The judgement was a another setback for the cam- paign, and the fight goes on. But it is difficult to organise around court judgements be- cause the initiative can always be taken awy from you. I would be especially foolish for us to rely on the European Court because absolutely nothing positive has come from the European Court to Ireland. In terms of EEC directives, the only one that has actually been imple- mented in Ireland turned out to be negative: in changing its policy on social welfare pay- for married and ments cohabiting couples the Irish government reduced its pay ments downwards, rather than levelling up! So we haven't gained so- cial parity with any of the - European countries. Progres- & sive legislation that has been implemented on the continent has meant little to Ireland. But for women there is a positive influence from the European dimension, from our relationship with other countries, especially Britain where women have the right to abor- tion under the 1967 Act. Irish people's attitudes are chang- ing: they are looking to the future, breaking with the church on many is- sues. Obviously the next few months are going to be hard. We hear that Cosmopolitan magazine, which publishes an Irish edition, will no longer carry information on abortion for sale in Ireland. On the other hand there are posi- tive developments - the organisation of a fightback against cuts and attacks on public serfvices. It has been women who have been the backbone of this response, women working in the health service as nurses, radiog- domestics; raphers and women teachers defending education; and mothers in the community. Community women have played a very big part in the demonstrations of up to 50,000 strong against the cuts. We need to make some kind of link between the right to abortion informa- tion - the right to women's reproduc- tive rights - and the fight on these other social and economic issues. If we can build this alliance there is the basis for us to win. (Speech given at Socialist Out- look Rally, London, December 1989) SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: facing the