Ireland has traditionally had a unique approach to matters of reproductive health. We have the only constitution in the world which gives a foetus an equal right to life with a pregnant woman. Abortion remains a criminal offence. We were the last country in Europe to legalise contraception, yet there is still no clear basis for the prescription of the morning-after pill here. All the most recent innovations in reproductive health, like IVF services and sperm banks are simply unregulated.
This bizarre, head-in-the-sand approach to issues of sexuality has a deep-rooted origin. Throughout the 20th century, Irish society was seriously sexually repressed. Now, with a more liberal sexual culture emerging, changing attitudes to sex are not yet fully reflected in our laws. There has been huge resistance to change from the Catholic Church (of course), and other conservative forces – and as a result much more now needs to be done.
Progressive change on reproductive rights is especially important for women. Laws banning contraception and abortion have long kept women ‘barefoot and pregnant’, thus enabling men to dominate society. Until we gained the right to control our own fertility by choosing when and if to have children, women were restricted from entry to the workplace and prevented from playing an active role in politics, business, the arts and sciences. It is no exaggeration to say that the invention of the contraceptive pill was the single biggest step forward for women in the 20th century. Since then, women have made huge gains in every walk of life.
The law on contraception has gone through rapid change in recent years, with full legalisation coming in 1993. By contrast, abortion remains banned in both criminal and constitutional law. There have been five Constitutional referendums on abortion since 1983, but the 1992 'X case' still represents the only circumstance in which abortion is legal in Ireland, i.e. where necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
Because of this highly restrictive law, women with crisis pregnancies continue to travel to Britain in large numbers (in the region of 7,000 a year) to access abortion. Over 100,000 Irish women have had abortions since 1983, the year in which the foetus was granted an equal right to life. Many face a ‘double crisis’. On top of the crisis pregnancy, they face the added crisis of the practical, financial and emotional difficulties in making the journey to England, and in the social stigma still attaching. The right to choose how, when, and whether, they reproduce – the core principle behind any reproductive rights campaign – is denied to them. Any practical legal solution must address their needs. Indeed, any legal approach that falls short of addressing the real needs of real women is ultimately not just a government failure – it is a failure for all of society.
That is why, on August 9th 2005, the Irish Family Planning Association launched the ‘Safe and Legal in Ireland’ campaign, supporting three women in challenging the Irish ban on abortion before the European Court of Human Rights. We hope their case will help to change the law and bring about real choice for women (more information on the campaign is available from www.ifpa.ie).
Finally, the other area where women – and men – lack real choice is in access to childcare. For a country which pretends to value unborn children so highly, children’s rights have been sadly undervalued for far too long. The shocking revelations in the Ferns Report show just how little regard this society had for child protection. A high proportion of Irish children continue to live in poverty; childcare facilities are unaffordable for many, and available only to a few. Our maternity leave laws are weak by EU standards; fathers have no rights to paternity leave; and parental leave is unpaid. In this country, women bear the main responsibility for childcare, and so gender equality cannot be secured until the needs of children and parents are brought to the fore in government policy. State provision of affordable high-quality pre-school childcare, tax benefits to cover costs, and decent after-school care facilities have to be the key priorities for legislators.
The fact is that the debate about reproductive and childcare rights is all about choice for women – and men. Until we have real choice in our sexual and reproductive lives, we will not have real equality.