I’m feeling strangely teary today about the Irish citizens
travelling home to vote in the referendum. I thought it was just me being a
sooky la la, but soon I was reading about all the other people around the world
with no connection to Ireland moved by #hometovote. It is the feeling of
solidarity, of people taking a stand on something so meaningful to the lives of
women. But I think it’s also thinking abut what it would be like, living in a
country without access to safe, legal abortion. We don’t tend to think of rich,
western nations like that. And so Ireland has kind of slipped under the radar.
We forget that there are places in the supposedly developed world that maintain
laws, or in this case, an aspect of the constitution, that are so backward. But
then, I guess we only just changed the legal definition of marriage, and NSW is only now implementing laws to protect women entering medical
services offering abortions from abuse. The US is becoming just painful to think
about at all. But I thought about what it would be like, in a country otherwise
not dissimilar to ours, to be a woman faced with an accidental
pregnancy, a pregnancy from sexual assault, a pregnancy hazardous to her
health, a pregnancy she might have wanted but was economically or mentally
unable to have now. And to have her agency on the future of that pregnancy
negated.
I can’t believe that Ireland doesn’t have a postal or away
voting system. But I am so impressed at how many people are actually making the
trip home in order to repeal a ridiculous article of their constitution that
should never have been allowed to pass in 1983 in the first place. It makes me
feel slightly better about the world.
And I’m pretty bloody cynical about the world. It also reminds me why I am
a fan of voting. I know our political system sucks. It’s a skewed form of
representation with very limited options, but if we don’t use it while it’s all
we’ve got, we won’t get anything better. Not voting because we are
disillusioned or apathetic leads to Trumps and Brexits.
These people are so engaged in their power to change Ireland
that they are travelling home to vote. Is
it the Irish? Is it the issue? Maybe people who have real lived experience of
the effect of oppressive laws are more engaged in change. Why did the British not all rush home to vote
against Brexit? Or the Americans against Trump? Australians against Tony Abott?
Maybe after 35 years of the LNP in Australia, people might have suffered enough
to rise up against it.
The passing of this article in 1983 that has been so solidly
debunked now shows the power of misinformation and subjective wording of legislation. In the face of post voting reality, it is also unlikely Brexit would pass, nor that Trump would be elected either. Australia
would be a republic if not for the wording of our referendum designed to sway
people against the republic. Our votes can be powerful, but we also need to clearly
understand what we are voting on. Political ignorance feeds the emotional
reaction to misinformation and misleading campaigns that the powerful rely on.
It sounds so boring of me to be pro voting. It's much more
fun to be antiestablishment. But right now, voting is one tool we have to
express our disagreement and not voting doesn’t change things. It just lets those
sufficiently invested in the system to vote for its perpetuation do so without
obstacle. Do the antiestablishment shit too. Protest. Boycott. Buck the norms.
Break unjust rules. Speak up and fight back. Be loud and outrageous. But keep using the system to our advantage as
well.
Prolifers have always astounded me. What part of life is
there is sustaining the body of a braindead woman because she is host to a foetus?
To refuse to perform a dilation and curette on a woman who was miscarrying
until she dies of septicaemia? In locking up a woman for life for having a
miscarriage because she may have actually attempted to procure an abortion?
This is real shit happening to real women, in rich developed nations, this
decade. Women on chemotherapy have their treatment stopped if their period is
late. Think about that for a second. Monitoring women’s cycles and withholding
life saving but teratogenic treatment on the basis that a late period may be a pregnancy when
there are a gazillion other reasons why a woman might be late. It gives a
possible pregnancy at such an early stage that many women miscarry without even
knowing it priority over the very definite life and life threatening illness of
the woman.
The effect of prolife arguments is always further control of women. A sperm is also a precursor of life. And men waste millions of them every day. Stop wanking, for the
sake of the unborn children! Stop having sex for non-procreative purposes!
Stop, well, just existing … Human bodies produce the cells that might lead to more
people everyday. The vast majority of them don’t lead to more people. Let the actual people affected by those cells make decisions on their own lives and bodies.
The Irish have taken a real pro life stance. Pro the lives
of women, their right to bodily autonomy, towards removing state and religious
control over women’s lives. Yes, I know that millions of women around the world
still lack access to safe, legal, affordable contraception and abortion. But
this is another step, and it’s been a hugely public and positive step.
Next time someone starts blurting right to life stuff at
you, please, sing them Every Sperm is Sacred. And maybe Suck my Left One.
Because when I’m not feeling soppy about the solidarity shown with Irish women
this week, I’m feeling really pissed off with people thinking they have some
right to women’s bodies.
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