@William Bright: We have legal abortions

try to keep up

@Are roo from Cork:

What evidence is there that so many Irishwomen have taken an abortion pill? However many have taken the pill, nobody forced them to take it. They are responsible for their own decisions.

There is no stigma attached to sex before marriage anymore. Therefore, the services of Mamie Cadden-type practitioners are in demand much less than they used to be.

@Aindreas Macliam: medicine should be taken under medical supervision..

please try harder.

@Ciarán Masterson:I do believe that that is the figure that came out from the Oireachtas meeting
Do I watch women swallowing pills ? No.
Nobody forced them to take it ? But they’re taking it

You mighn’t know this,but this has sweet feck all to do about stigma…It is about not wanting to be pregnant.

@Are roo from Cork: So when I get anti biotics from the doc he/stands there with me while I take them??
Not being smart but I’d like to learn, explain what you mean by medical supervision?

@Aindreas Macliam: does blood come out of your nether regions when you take those antibiotics

this is tiring

@Are roo from Cork: So let me get this straight, these “Safe” medications cause you to… hemorrhage blood from orifices?

@William Bright: Interesting parallel universe u live in. Do you still wear a tin foil hat ??

@William Bright: what a stupid comment

@Rosemarie F Martin: “pro life” people want to see the woman going through torture.They don’t care

@Rosemarie F Martin: Pregnancy always carries a risk of trauma or death to a woman. You don’t get to force a woman to take this risk, and I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be selfish when it comes to her protecting her own body.

@William Bright: heroin is obtained illegally and taken every single day in Ireland. Will heroin be legalised?

@Havana na na na: in not pro life but u need to drop the whole poor women thing, as far as I can see pro life are concerned about the baby as opposed to punishing women

@Róisín Lawless: It already is only it is called Methadone.

@Róisín Lawless: it should be

@Are roo from Cork: The leader of tge Repeal campaign Ruth Coppinger gave them out at train stations like sweets

@Are roo from Cork: Travelling for abortion is a symptom of the problem. Not the actual problem itself. How about we focus on taking proactive steps to avoid unplanned/unwanted pregnancy instead of introducing abortion.

@Havana na na na:
Whether for or against abortion it is a fact that up to now the 65,000 babies were born in Ireland last year , and for a number of years now maternal deaths averaged 8 per year. Ireland ranks very high in Europe as a very safe place to have a baby.

@Aindreas Macliam: seriously? Abortion can be traumatic and not as simple as popping a pill at home. In the UK they can only be prescribed by a Dr in a licensed clinic/hospital and up to 10 weeks gestation, they can’t be prescribed by a GP. Ultrasound is necessary to confirm duration of pregnancy and the 1st pill is given with a nurse present. Anti-biotics are also prescribed to avoid infection. A blood test is done to check for Rhesus Negative. 2 days later the woman returns to the clinic when the 2nd pill is administered. Three weeks later she returns again to be checked out by a Dr. In 2016 1,800 Irish women received the abortion pill – powerful drugs taken with no medical supervision. Our women should have the same care and protection given them as our neighbors across the Irish Sea.

@EillieEs: 1,800 women received the abortion pill by post

@William Bright: of course we should …

@Frederick Higginbottom: many medical practitioners in this country don’t care if a pregnancy is unplanned or unwanted, they just want women pregnant – something i experienced myself last week.

i’m trying to get sterilised so that i will 100% never be in a position to experience an unwanted pregnancy, as ALL would be unwanted to me. no birth control is 100%, so i want 100%.. which involves surgery. not full removal, just tying the tubes off, or removing the tubes.

my gp got told by the consultant that at 30, i was too young to know my own mind, and that i shouldn’t consider such a procedure until i’ve had at least 5 kids… which completely defeats the purpose of why i wanted the procedure…

if i have kids, they will be older kids i have adopted or fostered, not ones i have given birth to myself… however, this country doesn’t allow me to take the steps i require to be comfortable in my decision.

i’m now looking at having to go abroad for a procedure that is actually available here.. just like women who have abortions..

@Frederick Higginbottom: Time for the anti choice people to wake up and smell the roses.What part of ‘contraceptives failures’, ‘rape”incest’, ‘FFA’ happening that you lot are struggling with ?

Time for the abortion pills to be handed out by our GP’s

@Are roo from Cork: how are abortion pills unsafe and illegal. Im pro life and that makes no sense at all.

@Robert Fearon: Like with any pills, they can be unsafe if you have an allergy to an ingredient, or you are prone to severe side-effects from medication.. like me!

I have ended up so disorientated i didn’t know what city i was in whilst out for a walk, whilst on sudafed. I’ve forgotten who i was whilst on that. all pain killers i’ve tried, including non-drowsy ones, knock me out, certain antibiotics leave me suicidal..

this requires me to be careful about medication, especially unknown ones. i can’t just *not* take medication, ever… i just have to be cautious

@Fran Lonergan: you’re talking nonsense.

@Yazoo said Don’t Go:

You should know Susie, you’re well practiced.

@Chris Clancy Wilson: If a woman has been raped surely she can avail of the morning after pill which is legally obtained to ensure she doesn’t become pregnant. I would love to know how many women get the morning after pill on a Monday morning after a ‘great’ weekend of casual sex which seems to be prevalent in today’s society. Surely if a woman has unprotected sex and fears becoming pregnant then her first action should be to take the morning after pill and avoid the cruelty and emotional damage she could do to herself by having an abortion a couple of months down the road

@Chris Clancy Wilson: These are not rape victim statistics, these are women who made a personal choice to terminate their pregnancies so that they could continue with their own lives.

@Chris Clancy Wilson: the problem here is the need to establish that a rape occurred. Court case necessary which may take 6 months to get to court.

@Fran Lonergan: legalising termination of pregnancy in Ireland will lead to violence ? Please elaborate.

@Alan Gee:

Well, I didn’t exactly say that Alan, but would you not accept that where the value of life is held in lower regard that violence against the individual is more likely?

@Colleen Kilbane: Ya Colleen, sure not a bother on her, just got raped and casually pop round to Boots for the pill..ffs…

With regards your stupid remark on casual sex, it was always been that way, people just talk about it more today, your generation were to scared of the priest or what the neighbours might say. We were reminded yesterday how that worked out in Kerry, and we’ve seen how that shaming mentality benefited paedophiles in this country for so long….Come out of the fog would ya!!

@Gavin O’Brien: 1992 campus ucg they were canvassing. the girl said of course you will vote for right to life? i said dunno. then a tirade of abuse from her, the so-called educated class.

@Larry Doyle: do you hear it today.

@David Nolan: The committee has made its decision and people will make their own decision, just as you already have judging by your description of their decision as a “stunt”. Your lack of faith in the voters of Ireland in this matter is disappointing but not surprising.

@Paul Coughlan: Not yet…..

@Gavin O’Brien: what if the majority of TDs are in favour of repeal? Would you be complaining if the majority went the other way? Long live the Republic all right.

@David Nolan: what restrictions would you put on in the first 12 weeks ? Humour me

And still Gerald can’t see the irony of referring to a crisis pregnancy as a ‘lifestyle choice’

@The Risen: A pregnancy amounts to a developing child so where the woman is in danger from complications then the doctors have a duty to act and no person would have the least difficulty with that. Beyond this, strip away the language that supports the ending of the developing child by calling it something else or directing it to social conditions, gender rights or that developed countries do it then it becomes something else. The de-humanizing process was done before in academic circles and the world paid a huge price but no politician or reader here wants to go there.

@Gerald Kelleher: Why do you dehumanise the pregnant woman or girl? You fetishise the “developing child”, but don’t seem to care about the person who is pregnant.

@Gerald Kelleher: why should my lifestyle be destroyed by an unwanted pregnancy? why should i be condemned to a life of homelessness and disability because people don’t believe i should have any say over my body? because that’s the position pregnancy will land me in.

i’m fighting to be sterilised specifically so i never need an abortion.. but have been told that, despite what it will do to me, i need to have 5 kids before i can be sterilised… so… i need to be homeless, disabled, unable to care for myself, and a mother to 5 kids before i can have bodily autonomy in this country…

@Mirabelle Stonegate:
You have full bodily autonomy, if sterilisation is what you want, if you have the money you can get it.

@Gerald Kelleher: Whatever your view, pro or anti, it is not good enough that we pretend we have no problem. We need to start looking after the women of our country. If an Irish woman wants or needs an abortion she should receive the medical care here. It’s not good enough to ship it abroad!. The last referendum was held in a different Ireland, where bishops, from some crazy reason, decided what was moral….Baby John, stabbed to death and washed up on rocks was a direct result of those so called morals!

@Fran Lonergan: and there in lies the problem Fran. If your wealthy you have the choice. If your not you must live by the Catholic code of the 70′s and all the joys that bastion brought us!

@Fran Lonergan: “if you have the money you can get it” .Bless

You do like to think that YOU have all the answers Franny..

@Fran Lonergan: I was told, that, at 30, i was too young to know that sterilisation is what i want, and that i need at least 5 kids before i could know that. And this was in a private hospital, using insurance that i have had for nearly 30 years.

So… Nope, apparently im not allowed bodily autonomy when it comes to reproductive choices.

@Icant Spellwell: I like how you assume ive had sex…

I am on birth control and practice 100% abstinence, and im a virgin… Yet somhow, that doesnt seem to indicate im serious about never being pregnant. I WANT to have sex, but given that i have very liytle bodily autonomy over my reproduxtive choices in this country, i dont want to risk pregnancy.

@Lord Clanricarde: ” Whatever your view, pro or anti,”

The issue is not pro-life/pro-choice for many in Irish society nor is it a moral issue , it comes down to whether people can fool themselves into a belief that a pregnancy is not a developing child. Baby John and the women who filled the launderies were a result of out-of-sight-out-of-mind pretense that comes under no law for these people cut their daughter and grandchild out of their lives. While that was happening there were many more families where daughter and child just became part of the family.

The issue of sub-human is a scourge for any nation, the ability to de-humanize what it doesn’t see or like. That it is built into the education system as a doctrine is dismaying but again, people are so reluctant to deal with the issue out of unfamiliarity or because it is not convenient for their convictions.

@Gerald Kelleher: “out of sight out of mind pretense’.. Bullshit!!..You know only too well those women were slave labour and those children were a commodity to be sold, in the eyes of the church. Dance around that all you want, pontificate about our society and education all you want, but that’s the fact of it!

@Mirabelle Stonegate:

And you accepted that? My ex-wife was sterilized at 26.

@Francis Mc Carthy:

Do you think it is not true? Is it not an option? Please enlighten us.

@Mirabelle Stonegate:

From what you say, you are exercising your bodily autonomy. You don’t want to get pregnant and are not prepared to take the risk. That is both autonomous and responsible.

@Fran Lonergan: It only happened last week, and I was never contacted. the consultant contacted my GP, and he contacted me.

My GP is very behind me, and we’re looking into another hospital now, but chances are it won’t work..

If needs be, I will go abroad. I’m also considering writing to Simon Harris about this, for what that will be worth.. Especially, because he said this week about needing to trust women and their GPs to know if abortion is the right choice for them!

My GP is amazing, to be fair. he’s completely behind me and my decision, and is happy that I’m so sure in myself to know what I want.. but apparently what he believes isn’t important, nor am i important.

@Fran Lonergan: The thing is, I don’t see that it’s a choice to abstain from sex, it’s a requirement because I want to avoid the consequences.

I’ve ended relationships because I refuse to have sex. Relationships I was extremely happy in, because it wasn’t fair on the other person. I figured it was better for me to be single and unhappy, than to be in a relationship that I couldn’t move forward in. It wasn’t a choice for me, it was a duty, a responsibility, to ensure that the other person could be fulfilled regardless of how it affects me.

@Mirabelle Stonegate:

Abortion is very rarely right but that’s a different point.

On sterilisation, if such an elective procedure is covered by your insurance the it will be entirely the decision of the surgeon, which they are quite entitled to make. However I`m sure you should have little problem finding another doctor to carry out such a procedure. There is no law forbidding it.

It is not your GP that is doing the operation and cannot hold sway over the person who would do it. They may have ethical objections.

@Fran Lonergan: The “ethical” objection is that at 30, the fact that I don’t want children makes me too young to be able to make this decision… but if i want to have children, i’m more than old enough!

Additionally, i “need” to have at least 5 children, before the consultant will even consider it.. which defeats the purpose of what i’m looking for..

thing is, this is a very common opinion… that because i’m female, i MUST have children in order to know i don’t want them (ignore the fact that I’ve been involved in the lives of about 20 relatives from the time they were newborns, so i’m not lacking experience with babies or children).

basically, the situation is that ethically, people believe that abortion is preferable to sterilisation, when someone is confident that they don’t want children. I’ve held the belief for over 20 years that, for me, if i want children then i have a duty to adopt or foster, not give birth. children that are here are more important than anything i could bring into the world, because they already exist.. apparently though, having made this decision, and then reassessing it over the past number of years makes me immature, compared to someone that has a 1 night stand, gets pregnant and keeps the baby..

Of course, the consultant also ignored the fact that that pregnancy has a high chance to leave me disabled permenantly, and that even if it doesn’t, my hands are in a state that they can’t handle the stress of holding a baby for longer than 10 minutes in a day (something i’ve experienced from helping out with lots of young cousins).

I get that i probably sound very emotional about this, but given that this i’ve basically been dismissed as too young to make a life-changing decision at 30, but an 18-year-old can make a similarly life-changing decision without anyone batting an eyelid, is it in any way surprising?

@Mirabelle Stonegate:

We cannot force surgeons to perform operations against their ethical beliefs. You should have few problems finding a surgeon who will perform your op.

@Fran Lonergan: 6 months for one consultant to tell me no.. a year and a half for the second, most recent consultant to book an appointment, tell my GP no, and tell him to send me in so she can say no to my face…ie, charge me €200 to say no..thankfully, my GP contacted me off his own back to let me know the situation, so that appointment has been cancelled.

How is it ethical to declare that a 30-year-old is too young to make a reproductive decision, but an 18-year-old isn’t? how is it ethical to require a minimum of 5 children to be birthed before considering someone “old enough”?

the treatment of women when it comes to medical procedures is flat out sexist.and I’m not just talking about myself. I know more than one woman that has essentially been told that they need to suffer for 10+ years in agony due to chronic illness, because their ability to bear children is more important than their health. as in, they won’t even be given medication, because it might affect their ability to get pregnant…even though they also don’t have the intention or desire to get pregnant..

@Mirabelle Stonegate: you do what is best for you & not for some middle aged grandad that sniffs around women’s wombs..

@Lord Clanricarde: You are taking a view of the abused woman/child in respect to the launderies while at the same time taking a different view about a developing child in a shared environment with the woman (pregnancy). It was family pretense and social standing that dumped women and children into those awful places but so many more Irish families took the children into their own families and they were loved as such.

It is not a gender rights issue although the politicians will do their level best to frame it that way, it is how far people are prepared to go to accepting a developing child is not a human. I watched the Church stand and allow an ideology to develop which uses a de-humanizing process to force through a conclusion that the human species is not altogether equal by skin colour or culture but nobody wants to touch this least they expose that sub-human is a dangerous policy.

@Gerald Kelleher: No, it was the church who shamed and shunned those families and embarrassed uneducated, narrow minded people into believing this was the right way. People followed them and they had no problem taking their daughters and grandchildren to increase their profits.. Stop deflecting and call it what it was slave labour and child trading, nothing else.

Are you a misogynist?? You fetishise over the unborn with not a care in the world for the woman or that child once it is born either!!..Do you just want it born in the faint hope it will be christened and become a devout Catholic, to somehow stem the ever increasing flow away from archaic Arab ideologies?

@Havana na na na: They don’t care about women’s health, sure you only have to see the disparaging and derogatory remarks they make to know that. Denying access to abortion in Ireland is the last bastion of control. It’s pure hypocrisy because they’ll bleat about keeping the 8th amendment which results in thousands of Irish abortions outsourced to the UK, but will do nothing about repealing the 13th which permits them to happen. NIMBY hypocrites.

@DaisyChainsaw: I don’t know how I’ll vote when this goes to referendum. There’s still loads of questions that need to be ironed out like;

What about people that seek to have repeat abortions (34% according to the NHS in the UK last year), should people be allowed to have as many as they want? What about the tax payer funding this? What about making people perform them that are against it? The list goes on….

If you’d asked me this time last year I would’ve said that I would be voting in favour of légalisation. However I’m now undecided. And I’m by no means religious before that gets thrown at me

@Paul Hughes: those stats go back for decades.Women can have a child from an average age of 13 right up to their mid-40′s .Wouldn’t you say that that is a long time in a persons life? Wouldn’t you say that accidents will happen ? Woman getting repeat FFA pregnancies ..Woman being Raped earlier on in her life and then getting a diagnosis of FFA in her 30′s …So many reasons…And why would you want some young person to have multiple children ?

Most abortions are done via the medication pills & they will be handed out by the GP..We also have Dr’s that remove remains of a foetus after a miscarriage in our hospitals..

If you’re still undecided about ‘repealing the 8th’ after what happened this family,then i don’t know what to say to you..this is about the ‘foetal heartbeat’

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/damages-paid-after-death-of-malak-thawley-at-holles-street-1.3357391

@Havana na na na:
1- lots of things have been around for years. It doesn’t mean we endorse the action.
2- There is a flip side in that many women suffer psychological affecs after having an abortion (I’m not saying they don’t suffer these on the flip side and these things are hard to quantify).
3- you talk of safety for the woman but what of the safety of the unborn child?
4- lots of people are concerned that through legalisation the number of abortions will rise per capita as it has done in every country where it’s been introduced.

@Garreth Byrne: Perhaps the weather had someething to do with it…

@Chris Kirk: Not when there’s expenses and mileage to be claimed.

@Pat Bateman: everything seems to be a silly comparison to the anti choice side..That person that didn’t use protection,so according to some of the antis on here.,they should suffer for their actions

@Francis Mc Carthy: not everything, but the issue the ‘anti-choice’ side as you put it have, is that they feel abortion is terminating a life. Sorting out an STI doesn’t. So you can’t compare the two because nobody in the country (that I know of) has the issue with someone getting medical help for an STI

@Pat Bateman:abortion is a healthcare procedure and it should also be provided to the woman in a safe environment…It’s as plain as day from some of the comments that we have been getting on here,that the “pro life” people want the woman to be punished for having sex..

@Havana na na na: They don’t want the women to be punished, they just dont want the child to be. You’ll find a lot of the pro-life crowd would have no issue with women having abortion where their health is at risk – that’s a healthcare procedure. I’m just seeing the argument from both sides and while the pro-choice argument is the stronger one in my eyes, to compare an abortion to getting cream for your mickey warts undermines the pro-choice views.

@DaisyChainsaw:
#TheyHuntInPacks
#TheySubmitComplaintsInPacks

I guess a certain comment got too many likes & all the far-left psychopaths were unable to win by intellectual debate so resorted to censorship.

“In this time & place, if one is not being censored, then you can be sure one has come down on the guilty side of history,”- A.W

“Censorship is intellectual atrocity,”- A.W

@Censorship is modern day book burning: Still laughing at your comment from last night,in which you said that the 58,000 members of the ACOG were biased,after they wrote that ‘abortion IS healthcare’ ..That has to be the FUNNIEST comment ever wrote on here :-)

@Havana na na na: Tell me, if what was being said on that thread was so preposterous then why was is censored?

The truth doesn’t need laws to protect it.

“In this time & place, if one is not being censored, then you can be sure that one has come down on the guilty side of history,”- A.W

“Censorship is intellectual atrocity,”- A.W

@Censorship is modern day book burning:

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

George Orwell

@Fran Lonergan: and you don’t want to hear that women can make decisions about their own reproductive choices..it hurts you to know that they have the power to take a few pills,which in turn will end those pregnancies..You are a grandad that wants Irish women to be punished for having sex..

@Are roo from Cork: I’m pro life but support a women’s right to make decisions about her reproductive rights. Choose who to have sex with, choose any contraception you want, even insist on your partner using some. I don’t agree with abortion as a way of controlling your pregnancy. Ending a human life shouldn’t be a birth control method.

@Leticia Nava: Why not? It appears that politicians are allowed to decide everything else for us, from the day we are born, we are issued with serial numbers, that must correspond to a name given by our parents. We are issued with certificates of this, which corresponds to that, which may correspond to another, otherwise you must trawl through records, for which you must pay a compulsory fee. Otherwise you will be forced to reconsider your options and opinions. Is there anything private anymore? Let the politicians decide. That is their duty. That is what they are paid to do. Isn’t it? They are elected by the ‘people’, for the ‘people’. Aren’t they? Then let them do their duty. Or is that too much to ask of them?

@Patricia McCarthy: How were those statistics compiled? Where did the information come from? Who provides that information to the members of Dally Eireann? They have the name and numbers of women in every county in the Republic of Ireland who attended an abortion clinic in England? Do women who give their name and address to an abortion clinic in England get spied upon by the Government of the Republic of Ireland? There should be an investigation in to that sort of thing. Shouldn’t there?

@Patricia McCarthy: Take off your tin foil hat Patricia

@Fran Lonergan: And since time memorial women have been procuring abortions,and no decent Irish person wants to see any Irish woman dying or being sectioned against their will..

You’re a typical anti.Punish the woman for having the audacity of enjoying a good old romp..Doesn’t matter if she loses her life ,she deserved it

@Yazoo said Don’t Go:

You are making very big leaps Yazoo.

Ever think of taking up the the long jump?

@Fran Lonergan: done that

@Yazoo said Don’t Go:

Yes Susie, only in the leaping to conclusion Olympics though.

@Fran Lonergan: who is this ‘Susie’? The oul’ womb watching is playing tricks with your mind..

@Fran Lonergan: Having an abortion is taking personal responsibility. A woman consenting to sex is not consenting to pregnancy so if a pregnancy happens, she makes a responsible decision regarding whether or not she wants to continue the pregnancy. Or are you that much of a puritan that you believe a woman should only be having sex with her husband for procreation?

@DaisyChainsaw: Having an abortion is getting someone else to take personal responsibility for your actions. It’s not like it’s the woman that ends up dead at the end of the abortion process, now is it?

@Andrew Eager: The woman IS taking personal responsibility by ending that pregnancy.
48,000 women die every year from unsafe,illegal abortions..Does that lessen the blow for you ,Andrew ?

@DaisyChainsaw:

Ending up in the situation of having to have an abortion is the abdication of responsibility as is having an elective abortion.

@Fran Lonergan: she is being responsible by protecting HER life.Look after your own.