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'If my daughter was raped I'd never force her to carry a child'

“I’m very conscious that I was an unwanted pregnancy.”

AVERIL POWER CONSIDERS herself “generally pro-life” but said abortion is not a “black and white” issue.

The Senator’s birth mother fell pregnant outside marriage in 1978 and felt she had no option but to adopt her daughter.

As an adopted person, it’s not a straightforward question for me. I’m very conscious that I was an unwanted pregnancy.

Power’s own party, Fianna Fáil, allowed a free vote last month on Clare Daly’s bill to provide for abortions in circumstances where there is a fatal foetal abnormality.

Here the Senator explains her take on abortion and why she would have supported the legislation.

Video TheJournal.ie / YouTube

Camera: Nicky Ryan/TheJournal.ie

Adoption

Last month, Power co-sponsored a bill that proposes giving adoptees greater identity rights, such as access to their birth cert. It was passed in the Seanad with cross-party support.

Children’s Minister James Reilly said he does not oppose the bill, but foresees constitutional difficulties with it.

Power disagrees with Reilly and is calling on the government to step up to the plate for the 50,000 adopted people in Ireland.

Video TheJournal.ie / YouTube

Camera: Nicky Ryan/TheJournal.ie

Power said not knowing her birth mother was a “huge source of sadness and anxiety”. She met her biological mother at the age of 29, after an 11-year search.

“Now I have two families,” she noted.

‘A shameful abandonment’: Just one Labour TD defies party as Clare Daly’s abortion bill voted down

‘My son died believing I had rejected him’: Philomena Lee calls on Senators to support Adoption Bill

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25 Comments
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    Mute Censored
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:17 AM

    Hopefully France’s justice system is not like our own, or else these people will be back on the streets in time for evening prayers to their spaghetti monster.

    153
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    Mute redmarauder
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:25 AM

    No worry they will just come up with a new one, they always do because
    French legislators react to each terrorist wave with the enactment of new laws.

    Four major counter-terror laws are the ones of 1986 (Law no. 86-1020 of 9 September), of 1996 (Law no. 96-647 of 22 July), of 2001 (Law no. 2001-1062 of 15 November), and of 2006 (Law no. 2006-64 of 23 January).

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:29 AM

    ‘Spaghetti monster…’ The mono-atheists are slowly building an irony-clad narrative.

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    Mute Censored
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:38 AM

    I’m actually agnostic. Atheism is just as illogical as theism.

    50
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    Mute George Eliot
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:14 AM

    I presume you feel the same about people who don’t believe in unicorns?

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    Mute Cyril Butler
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    Jan 16th 2015, 11:45 AM

    Im both Atheist and agnostic to both god and David Ikes theory of reptiles. The laws of physics show no intervening beings and the laws of probability states less complex things such as a universe are more likely to exist than more complex things such as universe creators. I cant prove that god or fish eating flying aliens dont exist but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Jan 16th 2015, 6:59 PM

    Do people who don’t believe in unicorns drone on about a superquinn sausage creature that lives in a field?

    Mono-atheists all cling to the same superfluous outline brought down from the coffee house on Samsung tablets.

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:43 AM

    No wonder the JOurnal and other media did not show the Charlie Hedbo front page as this headline from elsewhere warns.
    ‘My husband is being lashed to death… they are killing him more every week’: Agony of wife of Saudi Arabian blogger who is being flogged 50 times every Friday for ‘insulting Islam’

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    Mute Dave Davis
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    Jan 16th 2015, 1:20 PM

    The journal did. Have a look. It’s still there.

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    Mute CitizenSmith©
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:36 AM

    These people are going to feel pretty stupid when Elvis comes back to Earth and has a tussle with Thor in an MMA fixture in Croke Park.

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    Mute Luther Cooper
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:52 AM

    Anyone hear from Frank??

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    Mute AN other
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:36 AM

    That will be subject to license!

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    Mute CitizenSmith©
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:41 AM

    Elvis doesn’t need the approval of your puny human laws, he is the law

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    Mute Atticus the Accuser
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:37 AM

    Frank’s getting probed by the lizard people and having his implanted chip updated! Normal numerology nonsense will continue shortly.

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    Mute Simon Barnes
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:15 PM

    do you not know what day it is today.. 16/01/2015 16-1 = 15 there is a 15 in 2015 coincidence or what.

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    Jan 17th 2015, 1:45 AM

    Frank and glen are having a Friday conspiracy movie night. Horgay is running the projector.

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:15 AM

    September 2012, Barack Obama at the United Nations “The future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
    Showing the true colours pf the man who watched football instead of marching with the other major leaders . I wonder what our Islamofascist apparatchiks will have to comment about this signal to the various groups that he is so fond of?

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    Mute redmarauder
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    Jan 16th 2015, 12:29 PM

    Nonsens, for example the Obama administration markedly stepped up the use of drones. Since Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the CIA has launched 330 strikes on Pakistan , his predecessor, President George Bush, conducted 51 strikes in four years. And in Yemen, Obama opened a new front in the secret drone war.

    Across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the Obama administration has launched more than 390 drone strikes in t five years , eight times as many as were launched in the entire Bush presidency. These strikes have killed more than 2,400 people, at least 273 of them reportedly civilians.

    Under Obama’s presidency dronestrikes killed six times as many people as were under Bush.

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    Mute Anthony Lang
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:05 PM

    It is to be hoped that France will start to recover in the way that Norway recovered and was able to regain its balance and stability after its terrorist atrocity.

    The Paris attacks were atrocities, anyone complicit needs to be made accountable, but France needs to move on and avoid making hate figures of Muslims, with French Muslims accepting, as the vast majority do, that they live in a civic and secular republic.

    Polarisation of opinion and division between Muslims and nonMuslims will only serve the terrorist agenda.

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    Mute E
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:58 AM

    How do you say CIA in French?

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    Mute Vaibhav Borse
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:42 PM

    There is a saying that goes by–”He who burnt himself with hot soup blows also in the cold milk too .” Guess where it applies?

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