Pro-life Campaign has begun Today

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Monday January 08, 2007 22:23 by Freedom of Expression

Propaganda through the Letter-box

Today the mail brought the Pro-life camapign through my door, or as I would consider
it unsolicited junk mail.
Notably, however this time I read it because I was struck by the design on the
colour leaflet and because it represents a step up in the upcoming constittutional
referendum on the rights of the child by the right -wing in this country.
No surprises there really.

PLC banner

The new pro-life leaflet asks us to use our vote , I am presuming in the referendum
though I did not study the specifics because I was put off by the preponderance
of white flesh, sandy beaches and sunny blonde people.

What has this to do with the right to bodily integrity or to the privacy of a woman in
relation to health care choices that she makes?

We are not all white.
We are not all married.
Some mothers to be are children.
Some mothers to be are carrying children with birth defects that will destroy
their families and bring grief to their homes.
Some people accept and believe that this is just how things are and some most
certainly do not.

There may be amzing technology available to show you the development
of the foetus in the womb, which the leaflet indeed claims.

BUT :- this referendum is not about the forces of conservatism 'again' telling us
that we are the 'sacred feminine', it is about the forces of conservatism seeking to
control how we view our bodies and shoving us into little boxes.

The referendum on the rights of the child has to accept that some children
should not be mothers and fathers. That they have the right not to be treated
as an adult woman or man if they get pregnant. That they have the right
to an abortion if they are a victim of rape or have a disease- i.e
The right to access therapeutic abortion.
The pushing of pamphlets through the door which focuses on pro-life
in the context of negating the right to privacy and bodily integrity- that
changes the life of a young girl into a mother who is second to the foetus she
is carrying is ammoral.

The courts upheld the right of a young woman to equality with the foetus she
is carrying. If she decides, therefore not to carry it, her equality is a nonsense.
She is seen within Irish law as secondary to the feminine role that she must play
whether she is ready or not for it.

The referendum has to accept that a child has the inalienable right to bodily
integrity and access to medical or therapeutic abortion if it is necessary.

It is an appalling vista because it is a by-road by the State into the woman's privacy.
It cannot suceed because the rights of the child are not read or understood within the
wider context of women's rights/family rights.

It is a cowardice, in which we all must become immersed in an ethical debate
which allows the State yet again to obfuscate an election campaign by dragging out
the old shite. the State has not for nine years addressed the issue of Church,
of hierarchical structures suffocating the health system.

In theory there is an equality between the mother and child because of the judgements
around the 'x' case and later. In practice the rights of the mother are subsumed beneath
the ethos of a male state and church which has no intention of respecting the right
of the child to be a child and not a womb. if in fact the state is serious about equality
then the primacy of the family must be removed from the constitution. The role
of the woman must be adapted to allow for full equal rights and state must make
the UN Convention on children's rights a reality.

Now how can that be achieved when the state will not acknowledge the right to
privacy and bodily integrity in the choice of medical procedure without the cowardly
subsuming of the whole issue of women's right and abortion beneath an ethical
debate which always views woman as a second class citizen.

This debate has it's roots in the right wing. In the LPR constitutional referendum
in Poland, in the Alliance in Europe between The fascist Italian group and FF.

The leaflets look like a Holiday brochure until you realise that the picture they paint
is of a white majority in an idealised country that pushes down the validity of women's
experience withot once actually asking the woman or the female child what they want.
and the whole lot of them are regularly saying the rosary outside the Marie Stopes clinic.

William Binchy