💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › patricia-mccarthy-abortion.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 13:27:32. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Abortion Author: Patricia McCarthy Date: 1992 Language: en Topics: abortion, Workers Solidarity Source: Retrieved on 9th October 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws92/abortion35.html Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 35 — Summer 1992.
Anarchists believe that every woman has the right to choose an abortion
when faced with a crisis pregnancy irrespective of the reasons for the
abortion. At least 4,000 Irish women have abortions in England every
year at present. Women worldwide have always sought to control their
fertility through abortion no matter how difficult it is for them to get
access to abortion and they probably always will. This is because it is
essential for women to be able to control their own fertility and not to
be reduced to the level of their biological function as child-bearers
only if they are to achieve true equality and liberation.
At present the Irish Constitution with the the Eight Amendment reduces
women to being equal only to a completely dependent foetus and it tries
to condemn women to become unwilling incubators. To compare an adult
woman or teenage girl with responsibilities, social relationships,
personal plans, and so on to a completely dependent foetus is
unacceptable. The foetus has no independent existence without the woman
and the decision about an abortion or a continuation of the pregnancy
must be the woman’s decision and no one else’s.
Women choose to have abortions for all kinds of reasons: poverty, bad
health, too many other children, because of rape or incest or simply
because they do not want to have a child at that point in their lives.
We believe that all these reasons are valid. Women should not have to
answer to anyone, not the church,not the state or even to doctors for
their decision. This raises the question of abortion on demand. We
oppose any kind of decision making process involving ethics committees
or doctors or other variations on this. A woman must have the right to
abortion on demand.
The question of free access is a very important one. At present only
those women who can afford both the travel costs and the operation costs
can get an abortion. Abortion facilities must be made available here in
Ireland and they must be free as all medical services should be.
Censorship of information on abortion is a totally insulting attack on
womens’ most basic rights as thinking human beings to know what all the
options are when they are faced with a crisis pregnancy. To deny women
information, to take books out of libraries, censor magazines containing
telephone numbers, all these actions treat women as irresponsible
children whose moral decisions need to be policed by small groups of
right wing bigots.
The hypocrisy of allowing women to go to England for abortions is no
longer acceptable to many Irish people. Apart from all other
considerations, having to raise the money for the travel and to go
isolated and afraid to another country adds untold trauma to what should
be a fairly simple medical procedure. Abortion facilities must be made
available in Ireland free and without restricted access.
Anarchists believe that a woman’s right to choose also means the right
to choose to have a child and to have decent housing, child care and
welfare facilities available in order to raise that child in a
reasonable way and in order that her life is not totally given over to
child care. At present with the current housing crisis the almost total
lack of free child care and the lousy welfare payments this is not a
real choice.
We are opposed to all forms of forced fertility control, whether it is
the state imposing limits on the number of children a woman can have as
in China or the denial of proper contraceptive and abortion facilities
as in this country. The right to choose means the right to choose not to
have a child or to have a child in circumstances where that means that
neither mother nor child suffer materially or socially for that
decision.
Anti-abortionists say that abortion is murder. We reject this argument.
The foetus is a potential life only — it is not comparable to the life
of a person of any age or ability who interacts socially and functions
independently. We don’t deny that abortion takes the life of a potential
human being. The right to choose means that it is the woman’s right to
choose whether to bring that potential life to full term or not given
the circumstances of her life. As anarchists we demand that right and we
will be active in the campaign for abortion rights in this country over
the coming months.