Abortion stigma is gone, says Irish PM after vote
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
From MSN News:
Ireland on Saturday voted to erase the stigma and burden of shame from hundreds of thousands of women who secretly had abortions, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said.
Speaking after a landslide referendum in favour of repealing the republic's ban on abortions, Varadkar said Ireland had emerged from the shadows and come of age.
"Today is an historic day for Ireland. A quiet revolution has taken place," he said in a speech at Dublin Castle, where the referendum result was declared, showing 66 percent had voted to repeal the constitutional ban on abortions.
"We as a people have spoken. And we say that we trust women and we respect women and their decisions.
"No more doctors telling their patients there is nothing that can be done for them in their own country. No more lonely journeys across the Irish Sea.
"No more stigma. The veil of secrecy is lifted. No more isolation. The burden of shame is gone."
Varadkar, 39, was given a rock star welcome by cheering crowds packed into the castle forecourt to hear the final result of the referendum.
He said Ireland would now provide compassion and medical care for women in crisis pregnancies instead of turning a blind eye. He told No voters feeling cut adrift that Ireland was the same country they knew, "just a little more tolerant, open and respectful".
Ireland's constitution was amended in 1983 to ban abortions. Saturday's referendum result will likely see the amendment repealed before the year is out.
"For 35 years we have hidden the reality of crisis pregnancies behind our laws. We have hidden our conscience behind the constitution," said Varadkar.
"This majority decision changes all that."
He said Saturday would be remembered as the day that historically deeply socially conservative Ireland "stepped out from under the last of our shadows and into the light.
"The day we came of age as a country. The day we took our place among the nations of the world."
He ended his speech saying: "The wrenching pain of decades of mistreatment of Irish women cannot be unlived. However, today we have ensured that it does not have to be lived again."
Varadkar, Ireland's first gay prime minister, came to power last year in what was seen as another major milestone for diversity in Ireland. He took over as leader of the centre-right Fine Gael party, leading a minority government.
Born to an Indian father and an Irish mother, Varadkar was a hospital doctor before becoming a family doctor in 2010.
He changed his position on abortion after hearing of two particular cases during his time as health minister from 2014 to 2016, which convinced him terminations should not be banned in the Irish constitution.
As he left Dublin Castle, he stopped for selfies and chatted with the handful of Yes-supporters still in the forecourt.
Seeder's Note: This article continues the topic of Ireland's abortion vote. My previous article on the topic focused more on the initial story.
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This is good for Ireland, and especially women. Women no longer have to be stigmatized (they never should have been to begin with) for having an abortion and they finally have choice. Kudos to Ireland.
Kudos to Ireland.
American politicians need to take note
This will be good for the people of Ireland.
Very proud of Ireland.
I’m ashamed of Ireland for embracing infanticide. God will judge those who promoted and/or voted this great shame on Ireland and it’s Godly heritage
An infant has to be born first before infanticide can occur.
Spare us the dogmatic tripe. It's utterly meaningless! Empty threats from your cosmic boogeyman is neither convincing or persuasive!
Deleted CoC, {SP}
2 day suspension due to an accumulation of violations.
I didn't know ad hom attacks was a Christian or godly thing to do. And I don't care whom you direct your comments to. On a public discussion forum, your comments can generate a reply!
No, but they have decided for themselves to not be slaves to absurd and antiquated dogma and superstition!
God aborts more fetuses than all of those aborted since Roe v. Wade
Abortion is in the bible...Numbers 5:11-31
God is the creator and it’s within His sovereign will who shall live and who shall die. Man is NOT God and has no such authority to act as God.
Numbers 5 is not about abortion. It’s about a judgment of barrenness. There is no mention of a pregnancy in this passage and no Jewish commentary (ie Mishna) suggests that
Free will
That's nice. Prove it! Besides, if someone has an abortion, then that must be "god's will" the fetus is aborted according to you. Who are you to say otherwise?
Deleted, skirting {SP}
Certainly people have free will to murder. But that also means bearing the consequences of our actions
Not my problem if it's over your head.
Again with the ad hom attacks I see, which only demonstrates your lack of credibility, in addition to not even being able to prove your claims or assertions!
If there was a god, there would be no such thing as free will. But abortion isn't murder!
that makes no more sense than saying you have lost any credibility to argue for God's sovereinty
Us 'reprobates' don't argue God's sovereignty, Larry, we argue God's existence.
No matter how many times you say it is murder it is NOT.
An existence which Larry and his ilk have never proven nor provided any shred of evidence. But we're supposed to simply accept his claims about or on behalf of a god? Laughable.
and you are a very staunch supporter of your God, since God is the biggest abortion offender that means you definitely approve of "infanticide" and condone "murder", correct ?
If you know of infanticide occurring you should report it to the police. But you won't because you know you're wrong.
It's truly a miracle that a country which is "more Catholic than the pope" has rejected superstition and Christian sharia law, and finally come out in support of the reproductive rights of women. Too bad this didn't happen long ago but I guess it just took a while for some of the elderly bible-babblers to die off.
Better late than never, right?
Yep, although it's too bad it didn't happen before some of the recent victims died due to that sharia law.
On a side note a male friend of mine almost died from septic shock several months ago. I knew of the condition but never knew anyone who had it that I know of, and I didn't realize how truly serious it can be or how long it can take to recover from it.....if you even survive. He had a small encysted staph infection in his gluteus maximus but no idea how it got there. He's otherwise extremely fit and healthy but this almost killed him......he was semi-comatose for over a week and hospitalized for about 6 weeks on intravenous antibiotics. It's been 3 months and he's still on antibiotics.
For me it just makes the reckless and negligent actions of hospitals in these anti-abortion related deaths even more reprehensible despite the fact that their hands were legally tied. They knew the fetus wouldn't survive and that the best and safest medical course of action was abortion, but this stupid law equated the life of the mother of dependent children with the life of a nearly-dead fetus.
Indeed. At least, no one else has to suffer that way again.
I'm sorry to hear about your friend.
So true. And some here on NT talk about fetus' rights when it comes to the issue of abortion. Well, this is what happens when a fetus has "rights."
posted elsewhere
The overbearing power of the church has been reduced and more freedom has been gained
No stigma has been removed.................what about those who voted no to abortions?
Those opposed to abortions are still free to not have them. But now women are free to have an abortion if they choose without having to run off to England and without shame or stigmatization from the majority of people.
The vast majority of those folks were quite elderly, 65 and older and far beyond child bearing age. So they were really voting to enforce their Catholic sharia laws on other people.
No wonder most folks just point and laugh at these anti-abortion freaks.
They don't have to get an abortion and then can spend the rest of their pathetic lives not worrying about things that are none of their fucking business in the first place.
Too late for Savita Halapanavar, but perhaps other women won't have to suffer and die as she did.