NEWS: Not so Lucky to be Irish

CULTURE: Not so Lucky to be Irish

Should girls and women, in places where abortion's illegal, lose their right to travel while pregnant?

That's the question in Ireland, where the Irish health service has forbidden a 17-year-old girl from leaving the country. She's having to go to court to appeal for her right to freedom of movement (although the Irish police, bless them, seem to have said that they don't intend to enforce the HSE's order). Her mom and her boyfriend are behind her desire to go to Britain for an abortion, not that she should need her boyfriend's permission to travel. An HSE appointed psychiatrist found that she's "distraught," but not actually suicidal -- which she'd need to be in order to get an abortion in Ireland.

Again, not that it should matter, but the fetus she's carrying is anencephalatic. It's missing part of its skull and brain, and will die within a few days after it stops using her body for a life support system.

But dammit, Catholic Ireland insists that she'd better act as a living incubator for as long as she can. Because a brainless fetus has more rights than a pregnant woman.

Bitch_PhD thanks Trahern for the link to the story.

Dammit! Everyday I read another story, article, etc illustrating these right wing fucking governments trying to take away more of our rights.

WTF is with this need to control EVERYTHING in OTHER PEOPLE'S lives?

I am amazed that in the year 2007..when i thought wed have teleportation and flying cars...women are STILL fighting for their rights...rights for their OWN BODIES no less.

just disgusting that people cant see why she would want to do this

That had to be a major let-down for you. Seriously. Bummer. Maybe 2008...

Maybe if she supported terrorism a little less and loved jesus a little more, god would give her fetus a brain.

Restricting the movement of the Citizenry is something the old Soviet Union used to do. There is no reason that Ireland should not allow that young woman to travel outside the country for whatever reason she chooses.

i can see their point. in their country, what she wants to do is illegal (whether or not it should be illegal is not the point) so they want to stop her going somewhere else to do something they feel is morally wrong. it's the same principal as people that want to stop sex tourism, where people people travel to have sex with kids younger than would be allowed in this country. no government likes to see its citizens just hop on a plane and say fuck you to the rules, particularly when that rules is the one about not 'murdering' people.

oh, and niiiiiice picture.

The link about anencephaly is disgusting.

I can't believe that they'd try to extract $3000 from a sailor's $20K pay to prove a point.

It's also disgusting that anyone would insist that a woman carry a non-viable fetus to term, through the risks of pregnancy and child birth. That mass of tissue has about as much chance of becoming a function human being as a brain tumor; the idea that you would try to restrict a young lady from having it removed is so foreign to me that I'm getting a headache trying to imagine the rationale for that position.

I'm hungry. Is anyone else hungry?

Travel past a certain point in preg. is often not recomended by Drs. However, I can't see how you can tell someone not to leave the country, then say we aren't going to enforce it. I'm glad they don't plan on enforcing it. But they shouldnt' have ordered it in the first place - reguardless of why she wants to leave the country.

That's absurd.

You might as well say we're all chattel if you're going to give the government the power to restrict our movement because we might potentially break one of their laws in a country where said law does not apply.

I usually hate it when religion and politics mingle. I don't know any other reason to make abortion illegal, and in such cases I don't think it should apply to anyone that isn't catholic (I don't know if the girl is or not).

The argument is usually about the rights of the fetus, assuming it's a person or potential person or whatever. This particular fetus will never be a real person. It shouldn't even be an issue.

And you're welcome.

Edited to add: Just had another thought. Do governments stop known paedophiles from travelling to countries renowned for child prostitution?

No. But what if they decided to prosecute them when they get back because in the country they reside it's illegal? Hey, they can't keep you from going, then why don't they just prosecute when you get back? You want to take away rights, may as well do it all the way.

think of it this way, you're a border guard and the nation you border has no laws governing murder. a mother comes up to the border with her son, you ask what the reason for her travel is, and she says she wants to cross the border so she can shoot her son in the head. legally you might have no right to stop her, but you'd probably feel pretty shitty knowing by letting them through you're condemning an innocent kid to be shot in the head.

or if that doesn't work for you, remember when you were a kid and your mom wouldn't let you do something, like watch nightmare on elm street, so you went over your friends house to watch it? remember how pissed your mom was when she found out you'd just found a sneaky way to get around the rules because she was the one that made the rules and decided what was best for you?

like i said, i can their point. they believe what this person wants to do is morally wrong, that's why they made the laws to stop it, and they feel it is so wrong they want to take drastic measures to stop those laws from being circumvented.

Um... yeah, and the US should stop all travel OCONUS for people ages 18-20 because clearly they are going to countries where 18 is the legal drinking age and it would be really shitty for those kids just to be able to hop on a plane and say fuck you to the rules.

I believe the reason the Irish Government is involved is because the girl is underage and in the care of the Irish Health Service Executive at the moment (eg she's "in care"). Obviously if I, as an adult, wanted to travel to the UK and have an abortion the government wouldn't try to stop me.

Just to be clear, is being under the care of the HSE something like being a ward of the state?

As far as I know.

Thats not right at all
I cant believe that people/government/religion thinks they should have a say on what women can and can't do with their own bodies.
Pisses me off.

The government should have nothing to do with peoples personal morals.

Name one country - one - that has no laws governing murder.

The government is not my mother. Period. That kind of government fucking scares me.

And even moms are wrong, sometimes. Hell, mine was wrong a lot.

Really? She has a mother... isn't she under her mother's care?

No, she was taken into care, you don't have to be an orphan.. I read an article saying that she was physically abused by her mother but I can't find the link.

Good to know... I suppose that would make a difference, though it's still shitty. Yeah, it makes it a lot harder to make an argument against it - I mean, I think she should be able to go, but if the government is essentially her guardian, and she's underage, it would seem as though there isn't much she can do.

Guess it pays to dig deeper into a story before coming to conclusions.

Yeah, I thought the original story was slightly misleading, the Irish government doesn't ban ALL pregnant women from travelling to have abortions, lots of Irish women do it.