Change the Constitution for Choice. Ireland Did.

[niyad]

Change the Constitution for Choice. Ireland Did.
7/13/2022 by Brigittine French



Abortion rights demonstrators march through the streets of Belfast ahead of a meeting of the Stormont Assembly on abortion rights and gay marriage on Oct. 21, 2019 in Belfast, United Kingdom, the day the country liberalized abortion and gay marriage. (Charles McQuillan / Getty Images)

Though unsurprising, the Supreme Court of the United States has officially ruled to overturn the legal right to abortion, deeming foundational reproductive healthcare unconstitutional. This ruling echoes the abortion ban in Ireland that was in place from 1861 until 2018, which criminalized abortion and caused disastrous outcomes for pregnant people and their families. Over the course of time, it became increasingly obvious to the majority of Irish people that it was a damaging law that needed to change, which they did four years ago. Citizens of the United States can learn a great deal from Ireland’s democratic approach to reversing the criminalization of abortion, which took it out of the courts and put it directly into the hands of the people. If Roe is unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court asserts, then it is time to change the Constitution by popular vote, just as they did in the Republic of Ireland.

In Ireland, as in historical colonies and independent nation-states around the globe, women have had the need for life-saving healthcare to terminate pregnancies forever. As early as during the life of St. Brigid of Kildare (451-525 A.D.), folklore and oral history records indicate that this revered saint blessed a nun who broke the vow of chastity and became pregnant, thus enabling the fetus to disappear. Throughout modern history in Ireland, when women were forced to have unwanted pregnancies, they turned to suicide out of desperation, they were ordered into asylums known as Magdalene Laundries to hide their “shameful” pregnancies, and they faced increased chances of violence at the hands of men who do not want to be named as fathers for unwanted children or family members who did not want to bring shame upon the family.

As in Ireland, there is a strong link around the world between increased attempts at femicide (the murder of women) and the inability to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, a lesson from comparative history that is clearly predictable in the United States under the current ruling.
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Protestors outside Leinster House, Dublin, in memory of Savita Halappanavar, who died from sepsis at the age of 31 in 2012 after Irish doctors denied her an abortion, even as she miscarried. Her death sparked outrage across Ireland. Six years after her death, voters agreed to remove the Republic of Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion. (Julien Behal / PA Images via Getty Images)

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Checks and balances are at the core of American political structure; democracy, freedom of choice and equality are married together in the political foundations of this country. It is now time for us to engage the processes of constitutional reform that our founding fathers gave us in order to ensure the right to choice is ensured for all citizens in the United States regardless of gender, race or religion.


https://msmagazine.com/2022/07/13/change-us-constitution-pro-choice-ireland/