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A GROUP REPRESENTING parents whose children had or have fatal foetal abnormalities is calling for the phrase ‘incompatible with life’ to be discontinued.
Every Life Counts said the term is comparable to ‘retard’ or ‘cretin’.
Independent TD Mattie McGrath has drafted a bill attempting to have the phrase removed from official medical terminology.
Spokesperson Tracy Harkin said parents with children who are deemed incompatiable with life are “pushed toward one route” – abortion.
Harkin said she “absolutely” understands why some women in this position choose to terminate their pregnancies.
“We know the fear that this label strikes into your heart. Abortion is driven by fear and a denial of the humanity of the child.
Parents are being led to believe their children are just a freak of nature, like monsters, that they’re not fully human. And this is so wrong in this day and age.
Tremendous healing has come from spending just minutes with their child – whether it’s minutes or whether it’s days, or in my case eight years.
Harkin’s daughter Kathleen Rose has Trisomy 13 and was not expected to live beyond a few days, but is now eight years old.
Harkin said her daughter “deserves to be treated just like every other child and not to be discriminated against because of her disability”.
The group wants perinatal hospice care to be introcduced and for parents to be provided with better information and counselling options.
“Some of our mothers’ experiences have been very positive, others not so positive. Many are saying that they are pushed towards termination when they are given a poor diagnosis and not given any information on the individual case of their child.”
Proposed legislation
McGrath said the bill is “not trying to criminalise anybody in the medical profession”, noting: “We know how difficult it is for them, how hard they work.”
“We want compassion. What we want is a conversation about the wording.”
McGrath said he has received support for the bill from some fellow indepenednt TDs, as well as from members of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Renua Ireland.
He said he’s hopeful the government won’t block the bill, but added he’s not confident this will happen.
“I’m not – never confident with this government, especially the way they’ve been behaving in recent times on a whole range of matters. They’re not very good at taking private members’ bills.”
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Is this a sponsored article?
@Gary Tuohy: It says it’s supported by Schweppes.
A beverage brand that is sold around the world. It includes a variety of lemonade, carbonated waters and ginger ales.
I personally recommend this beverage. ‘Schweppes’, probably the best beverage in the world.
@Gary Tuohy: Hey man. Not sure! Nice to be asked for the interview though. Cheers for giving it some of your eye time ☺️
Musicians once sang for enjoyment. Then they sang for payment. Then they teamed with the music replicators and distributors who could take sell one performance thousands of times which made many people embarrassingly rich and gave others a living.
They could charge well because the general public had no other way to hear a pristine performance than to pay the “industry”
Then came cheap non-decaying digital replication and the internet ( paid for by the end user through hardware purchase and broadband subscription btw) which enabled them to share and replicate a performance themselves.
It’s not the making of the music that made musicians rich – it was a monopoly of the replication and distribution channels
That game is now up. Time to go back to performing for payment – or enjoyment..
@Nydon: Hey. Agree in that it’s always been about the enjoyment of making music together for us and a big thing for us was to not feel any creative pressure making music for money to survive …thankfully too as we are in the era of free streaming illegal downloads etc. We never wanted that feeling or pressure. That’s why we both still have job jobs. Anything else we make from music music is extra extra ✌️Makes this whole new process of getting our music out there even more enjoyable, no pressure regardless …and it’s been a success so far comparatively ….and look we’re in the journal! Yay! Now to sleep soon…we both have to work tomorrow! Good night ! N & P
@Deadbots:
I hope you can and will make enough out of performing live to have a good life and income. But I’m afraid recording and mass distribution may in future be only a way to advertise what you can do live.
If you can get your biggest fans to become patrons and subsidise some of that advertising cost by paying for downloads then all the better – but I think it’s back to the days of the wandering minstrels singing for their supper :-(
@Nydon: I’m afraid you’re take on the history of musicians/composers and the music industry is overly simplistic and rather disrespectful. The major ground shift that changed the industry for the worse was that people saw the internet technology as a way of sharing and getting music for free and the recording companies didn’t know how to cope with that level of copyright theft. Their way out was to allow Spotify access to their artists at relatively low cost by reducing the artists share to virtually nothing. I’m not sure what you do for a living but if your job was suddenly dropped to a fraction of minimum wage but you were expected to continue to work the same amount because “you enjoy doing it, don’t you”, maybe then you would understand of the damage Spotify and such services do.
@Nydon: Or they can write a mega hit tune or tour relentlessly for 40 hrs a week and sell merch etc
I hear Brewing Up A Storm often on the radio. Should there not be an income stream from IMRO seeing how they charge every little corner shop that has a radio on?
@Squiddley Diddley: Sorry just realised that song was mentioned as an example.
how much did they get for radio play?
@steve white: Hear ya. We don’t plan on income from radio play. Or even sales really. It’s all in the syncing these days. That’s why we want to own our tracks 100% and have our own cyber house for them. Night :)
Crap Bands don’t make any money shocker
@Stevie Doran: Yo! The song we got a payment check for 10 cents for was the same song being given away on so many free download sites the labels profits were being affected. But even still free downloads help get ur music heard n out there. Months later that song was used for a tv show, video game and Milan fashion week. #payday but we didn’t get all the pay cause we gave away too much of our publishing rights.
Now we own all our own music.
Most money to be made these days for bands at our level is in syncing & we’ve already synced 3 songs off the upcoming album it’s not even out yet, and yeppers, that money went straight to us.
You don’t have to like our music. Not everyone will. But want to push message for others to maintain their ownership cause when syncs come calling, hello
Still getting 97p is actually good money for work done 30 years ago.
Joking aside it’s never been better for up and coming musicians. A decade ago some guy in a suit decided whether or not you’d have a career and more often than not went with the safe bet and offered washed up “superstars” millions rather than spreading it around to new talent. Some musicians lament the fact that if it had been ten years earlier they’d have made a fortune but they’re ignoring the fact that they might not have even been heard.
have your say