Workers Solidarity Movement

A meeting calling for abortion legalisation in Ireland, at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, was filled to capacity last night as hundreds crammed into the room. The meeting marked 20 years from the X-case and the failure of all the political parties in the years since to legislate for the limited abortion provision required by the X-case court judgement.  The clear message was that it was time for Action on X.

The first speaker, journalist Vincent Brown described the long fight for abortion rights in Ireland, from the so -called 'pro-life' referendum in 1983, to the X-case in 1992 and the referendums afterwards.

20 years ago this month details emerged of the X-case, when the Irish state injuncted a pregnant 14 year old who had been raped to prevent her traveling of England for an abortion. The x-case was the culmination of a decade of fundamentalist anti-choice hysteria that had flowed from the 1983 referendum designed to make it impossible to ever legalize abortion again in Ireland.

(Pic: Press launch - taken by RAG)

Workers Solidarity Movement position paper on Queer Liberation as re-written at the October 2011 National Conference. This position paper sits under the Sex, Gender, and Sexuality paper and does not repeat that material here.

After spending tens of thousands of euro in promotion, Youth Defence’s anti-choice march finally took place in Dublin on July 2nd last. Despite the free coaches and months of preparation only about 3000 took part, making it a tiny fraction of the Pride Parade of the previous Saturday. In the week before the anti-choice march, three or four people met to initiate a pro-choice counter demonstration. This proved somewhat controversial as many pro-choice activists feel that it is better to simply ignore those who would seek to jail women to prevent them controlling their own bodes. But despite having no resources, and advertising only though a Facebook event, somewhere over 300 people turned up on Saturday to provide a counter point to the bigots parade.

After spending tens of thousands of euro in promotion Youth Defense's anti-choice march finally took place in Dublin. Despite the free coaches and months of preparation even RTE admitted that only 2-5,000 took part, making it a tiny fraction of the Pride Parade of the previous Saturday. And from observation a large part of that crowd was composed of unhappy looking young children dragged along by relatives, priests, monks, nuns and the very elderly.

Dr. Mary Favier is a Cork based GP and a founder member of Doctors For Choice (Ireland). Active in health politics generally she was
recently involved in the provision of a supporting brief in the
European Court of Human Rights ruling (“the ABC Case”) that condemned the Irish Government’s record on the provision of abortion in Ireland.

The media narrative regarding the Corrib Garda rape remarks played out with sickening predictability. Sticking as closely as possible to the Garda Press Office line, the news media decided that this was an isolated incident: yes, it was inappropriate for Gardaí to joke about raping captive women, but the matter is under investigation, and anyway it's all just a bit of private banter between colleagues. No need for a wider discussion about societal attitudes towards women, or about the militarised policing of political protest in North Mayo and elsewhere. Up popped Kevin Myers to explain why men are the real victims here, oppressed by the 'politically-correct' thought police, while Vincent Browne informed us that rape jokes “are just part of the lingo of Irish males” and that's that.

A protest will be held on Saturday, April 9th 2011 outside Belmullet Garda station, Co. Mayo at 2pm. Shell to Sea are inviting people to join this demonstration in support of all the women and men who have been harassed, threatened and intimidated by Gardaí, especially in light of the recently documented comments about the deportation and rape of two female Shell to Sea campaigners. This is not the first example of Garda intimidation and threats against campaigners in Erris. The recording is a glimpse of the reality of intimidation and violence that has dominated community life since Shell's arrival in Co. Mayo.

Tuesday March 8^th was International Women's Day, and to celebrate it Cork WSM and several other organisations in the city organised a number of events in various locations. Ahead of the day on Saturday and Sunday, the Cork Sexual Violence Centre in Camden Quay and the Women's Studies Department of UCC respectively held celebratory events. On the day itself, events marking it were held around the city.

Around 80 people took part in Sunday's annual Feminist Walking Tour to mark International Women's Day. The tour was organised by Choice Ireland, Lashback and RAG and for the first time was confined to the south side of the city, starting at Stephen's Green and ending up in Temple Bar. The audio from the individual stops on the tour is included with this article.