May 25th 2018

Credit for this image goes to Maureen Aisling Duffy Boose and Geraldine Byrne with grateful thanks

Today is a day for massive potential change.

Ireland is voting to repeal the 8th Amendment. If repealed, this would grant the right for women to seek a termination should they need or want it. *

I am firmly pro-choice. Always have been. Always will be.

With my medical issues, pregnancy could have killed me either time. Had I been misfortunate enough to have an ectopic pregnancy I would have needed an abortion/termination of pregnancy in order to live.

You know what? I like being alive.

I am an autonomous, living, breathing human being and dammit I have rights.

Incidentally I was sick enough after delivering each baby that I could have died from post-pregnancy complications. The entire process is no cakewalk. We suffer for our offspring.

We do it willingly – but sometimes it isn’t possible. Or should not be.

My sisters in Ireland do not currently have that choice.

Please do not forget that pregnancy can kill us, the women who carry those precious bundles.

That there are reasons why any pregnancy might be unwelcome or unwanted.

Or, most tragic of all, those pregnancies which are deeply wanted, the child longed for, precious, and yet that child will stand no medical chance of living. Or will survive for a time but in great physical pain. With no quality of life.

There have been recent cases in the media that cover this point.

For all of these reasons, and many others women need to have the choice.

We are here, we matter.

We are worth more than the potential contents of our uterus.

I have fears connected with this too, as we now live in a country that is seeking, day by day, to strip American women of these same rights and I have a daughter. A daughter who is worth more than her potential as a brood mare.

I have children who I feel should be able to reach maturity and experience a loving relationship without fear of an unwanted or badly timed pregnancy – contraception is a GOOD thing y’all.

But it doesn’t always work.

I stand with Ireland today. I pray that this goes the same way as gay marriage did.

Ireland, do us proud.

Here ends my political ranting. Normal service will resume later.


* it is also the day that the GDPR comes into effect, but I have fewer strong feelings about this.