Latest news with #repeal
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
As abortions triple, when will we admit that reluctant repealers were profoundly wrong?
Strange, isn't it, how often this pattern repeats? We are assured in stentorian tones that not only is something never going to happen, but it is scaremongering and manipulative even to suggest that it will. Then we are told that it has happened, and furthermore, it is unequivocally a good thing. Before the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, we were assured that all that would happen was that a similar number to the 2,879 women who travelled to England and Wales in 2018 would no longer have to do so. Then-tánaiste Simon Coveney believed the argument, though he said 'removing the equal right to life of the unborn from our Constitution [was] not something I easily or immediately supported'. In an oped, he said any woman choosing abortion after a three-day waiting period and other safeguards 'is very likely to have travelled to the UK or accessed a pill online in the absence of such a system being available in Ireland'. He and other reluctant repealers were promised that numbers of abortions would not rise rapidly and inexorably. The latest abortion figures show 10,852 abortions in Ireland in 2024 . There were 54,062 live births in 2024 . For every five babies born alive, one was aborted. READ MORE Is there no number of abortions that would be unacceptable? If one in two pregnancies was ending in abortion, would that be too many? UK Department of Health figures show the number of women giving Irish addresses for abortions halved between 2001 and 2018, with a 5 per cent drop from 2017. Numbers were dropping before Repeal, in other words. Even allowing for the tiny number in 2018 of Irish-based women having abortions in the Netherlands and those using illegal abortion pills, the rise in numbers of abortions is shocking. Some 55,000 of them have taken place in Ireland since Repeal. The reality is that restrictions on abortion reduce abortion numbers. US advocacy group Secular Pro-life has a useful summary of the evidence. Many studies claiming restrictive abortion laws don't lower rates overlook socio-economic factors. Most countries with strict laws have low economic development, and poorer nations tend to have higher abortion rates. This important confounding factor is often ignored. As a relatively wealthy liberal democracy that banned abortion, our abortion rates were much lower. Abortion numbers can triple, and still Ireland refuses to acknowledge that the reluctant repealers were wrong, wrong, wrong. The Eighth was saving lives in the thousands. We collect statistics on where abortions happen in Ireland and under what part of the legislation, and virtually nothing else. We seem to have zero interest in the reasons why women have abortions – whether it is poverty, lack of support, or housing. Is that because we don't want to look too closely at anything that might undermine the idea that abortion is just another healthcare procedure? At some level, people know well that abortion is unlike any healthcare procedure. English singer Lily Allen recently sang a flippant parody of My Way about not knowing exactly how many abortions she had. It was probably five. Many pro-choice people were shocked. The comments on the BBC video of the podcast she hosts with Miquita Oliver, who has also had 'about five' abortions, showed the conflict people felt. Some pro-choice people felt that by saying the only justification needed for abortion is 'I don't want a f**king baby', she had handed ammunition to the anti-abortion advocates. [ Breda O'Brien: Ableist legislation shows lives of those with Down syndrome are less valuable Opens in new window ] Others disagreed, with comments such as: 'It's important to support any abortions for any reason. If you start putting restrictions on who can have them, how many they're allowed, and how they must act when they've had them ... well, you're not pro-choice.' I am not interested in dumping on Allen or Oliver. Allen has spoken about losing her virginity at 12, about a 19-year-old friend of her father's who bought her drinks and 'had sex with me' when she was 14, and about living through her teens to her 30s in a haze of drugs, alcohol and mental ill-health. (By the way, we have no idea how many women are coerced into abortion, even though domestic violence campaigners tell us it happens in Ireland, including one under 18-year-old who was locked in a room and forced to take abortion pills.) Allen and Oliver are not alone in joking about abortion. Irish comedian Katie Boyle has a comedy show about her experience of having an abortion aged 34 in the US, which caused the presenters of the Morning Show on Ireland AM to laugh. Nonetheless, most people still react with shock when abortion is treated as contraception – or a joke. It reminds me of debating in the past with people who were adamantly pro-choice, who visibly flinched when the number of babies with Down syndrome who are aborted was mentioned . Their humanitarian, pro-disability rights instincts conflicted with their other deeply held beliefs about the right to choose to end early human lives. The problem is that while bans and restrictions on abortion did decrease rates, those of us who consider ourselves pro-life depended on the legal ban while underestimating how the culture was changing. To keep abortion figures low in a well-off democracy, we needed to persuade people to build a woman-friendly society where pitting women's rights against the next generation's right to life became an unthinkable and completely outdated dilemma. The failure to do so really is no laughing matter.
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Missouri lawmakers approve referendum to repeal abortion-rights amendment
Six months after Missouri voters approved an abortion-rights amendment, Republican state lawmakers on Wednesday approved a new referendum that would seek the amendment's repeal and instead ban most abortions with exceptions for rape an incest. The newly proposed constitutional amendment would go back to voters in November of 2026, or sooner, if the Republican governor, Mike Kehoe, calls a special election before then. Republican senators used a series of rare procedural moves to cut off discussion by opposing Democrats before passing the proposed abortion-rights revision by a 21-11 vote. The measure passed the Republican-led house last month. Immediately after the vote, protesters erupted with chants of 'Stop the ban!' and were ushered out of the senate chamber. The senate then blocked further Democratic debate and gave final approval to a separate measure repealing provisions of a voter-approved law guaranteeing paid sick leave for workers and cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage. That measure does not go back to the ballot. It will instead become law when signed by Kehoe, who has expressed his support for it. After taking the sweeping votes, the senate effectively ended its annual legislative session – two days ahead of a constitutional deadline to wrap up work. Democrats were outraged by the legislative actions and vowed to retaliate by slowing down any senate work next year. 'Our rights are under attack,' the Democratic state senator Brian Williams said during debate. He accused Republicans of 'trying to overturn the will of the voters'. Republicans contend they are simply giving voters a second chance on abortion – and are confident they will change their minds because of the new rape and incest exceptions. 'Abortion is the greatest tragedy in the world right now,' the Republican state senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman said while explaining her efforts to repeal the abortion-rights amendment. If someone's fine with 'taking the life of an innocent, then probably you can justify whatever you want'. Some GOP lawmakers said they needed to repeal the paid sick leave requirement , which kicked in on 1 May, because that it was adding costs that threatened the financial viability of small businesses. Republicans had been negotiating with Democrats over an alternative to exempt only the smallest businesses before scrapping that and opting for the full repeal. Missouri lawmakers have a history of altering voter-approved policies. They previously tried to block funding for a voter-approved Medicaid expansion and authored changes to voter-approved measures regulating dog breeders and legislative redistricting. Missouri's abortion policies have swung dramatically in recent years. When the US supreme court ended a nationwide right to abortion by overturning Roe v Wade in 2022, it triggered a Missouri law to take effect banning most abortions. But abortion-rights activists gathered initiative petition signatures to reverse that. Last November, Missouri voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to abortion until fetal viability, generally considered sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy. The amendment also allows later abortions to protect the life or health of pregnant women and creates a 'fundamental right to reproductive freedom' that includes birth control, prenatal and postpartum care, and 'respectful birthing conditions'. A limited number of surgical abortions have since occurred in Missouri, but medication abortions remain on hold while Planned Parenthood wrangles with the state over abortion regulations. The new measure seeks to repeal the abortion-rights amendment and instead allow abortions only for a medical emergency or fetal anomaly, or in cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. It also would prohibit gender-transition surgeries, hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors, which already are barred under state law. Polling indicates 'that most voters are opposed to most abortions in Missouri but do want to allow for abortions with limited exceptions,' said Sam Lee, director of Campaign Life Missouri. The ballot title that voters will see doesn't explicitly mention repealing Amendment 3. Instead, it says the new measure would 'ensure women's safety during abortions, ensure parental consent for minors' and 'allow abortions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape and incest'. It also states that it will 'protect children from gender transition', among other provisions. The Democratic state senator Tracy McCreery called the measure 'an attempt to mislead and lie to the voters', echoing similar accusations that Republicans had made against the original Amendment 3. An abortion-rights coalition that includes Planned Parenthood affiliates, the American Civil Liberties Union and others planned a rally on Thursday at the Missouri capitol and vowed a vigorous campaign against the measure. 'Abortion rights won in this state six months ago, and mark my words: Missourians will protect reproductive freedom again,' said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes.
CBC
14-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Nova Scotia opening bids for uranium exploration at 3 sites
The move marks another step toward uranium mining following the repeal of a ban this spring. Taryn Grant has the story.
