REPEAL THE EIGHTH

[lokifan]

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I have been obsessing about this vote all week. It’s the only thing that could overcome FFXV stuff in my head. This weekend I’m a) moving, and b) seeing several friends I don’t see often c) at London Expo - aka a mini comic con - and then taking the week off. I SO NEED a holiday, and I’m gonna spend five days in Liverpool :D :D :D Staying with my biffle
sodsta and seeing his delightful girlfriend S, and the beloved & much-missed
creatoremagico and
drazzi. Oh, plus I have to pack a bit, then move on Saturday, then unpack, do some laundry probably, and repack for Liverpool before we head off on Monday, while attempting to drink and get down with my bad self as much as possible. So I have lots to think about! Most of it good, if busy.

BUT OH MY GOD. Abortion is illegal - including in cases of rape, incest, and serious fetal abnormalities - and punishable by fourteen years in prison in Ireland, which is completely fucking ridiculous. And today that might change.

I hope everyone remembers Savita, a woman who died in 2012 because the hospital she was at refused to give her an abortion. (They told her ‘this is a Catholic country’ as she was dying; she was Hindu, and the baby had no chance to live anyway.) Her father and widower have both spoken out during the campaign.

My cousin Jacksparrow regularly hosts Irish & Northern Irish people who’ve come over for abortions. I donate to a charity she works with, that helps defray travel and accommodation costs. The most common reason to have an abortion is that you can’t afford it, so having to travel internationally, take time off, and get accommodation - all within a limited time - is obviously a real problem. An estimated 170 000 women have left Ireland for an abortion since 1983.

They’re the lucky ones, in many ways, of course. Especially the ones who can have someone with them, to help take care of them afterwards. Up to 2000 women take the abortion pill a year - and that’s bought online, so it can be hard to trust, and sometimes Customs will seize them.

Northern Irish people will still be completely fucked over, of course. There are women being prosecuted there; the UN has said it’s an abuse of human rights. It’s a scandal and a shame, that abortion rights are so hideously limited in my own country [meaning within the UK]. But I was at a protest over this a few months ago and there seemed to be some hope that an Irish repeal of the eighth would help.

Okay, this post has lost any internal structure it may have had, but I can’t help it. NOT THE CHURCH, NOT THE STATE, WOMEN* MUST DECIDE THEIR FATE

* & others who can get pregnant

This was originally posted at https://lokifan.dreamwidth.org/374430.html. Comment wherever you like :)