The Irish Abortion Referendum

100k marching in dublin today against repeal of the 8th

they can all fit into a space that under normal circumstances cant have more than 17k

and half of them are kids and grandkids

its no wonder a few loaves and fish feed a crowd if thats how they count

good luck éire

oooof

scenes on boards.ie thread

plants pictured holding v inflammatory banners at previous pro-choice events (one saying 'abort sick children' or somesuch, another hoisting the logo of a british fascist org) have been spotted and identified as stewards for today's pro-life events

xp feires feire

Omg link the thread please darragh? I haven’t been on boards in years and find it incomprehensible now.

Wonder how many of the marchers were American? Did you see that mess with the pro-life activist running the @ireland account?

save u going to boards heres the tweet for first

twitter.com/SPE32/status/972512845232508930?s=19

cannot seem to link tweets properly soz

and second

https://m.facebook.com/SolidarityTimes/photos/a.341910489331727.1073741828.341899462666163/780496845473087/?type=3&theater

on that latter i might have confused that hes not a steward today but was def a plant at a womans day march prev

not sure if firm link other than cointelpro tactics

srsly tho these lunatics

Thank you! Will check those out now. Was reading the times article on this and just making a face at this:

“Ten weeks to ensure that the best of Irish people vote No to abortion,” she said. “Stand in the gap against the media and the international elites who think they could browbeat and bribe the Irish people into accepting the unacceptable, the killing of our own children,

the abortion industry sin é an rud nua now, abortion industry

id feel like saying "but we could use the jobs nach bfhuil ha?" but believe it or not im not actually a troll

Yeah totally unsurprised by the conclusion drawn by the Facebook page, it’s alluded to in the speech I partially quoted from above.

xp I mean...

i am getting the feeling its going to be tighter than coverage might have you think

on the likes of boards the presence and amount of obvious bots is getting more and more prevalent and its v unsettling

Are the Archbishoprics running bot campaigns now

xxp I never expected a walkover. In my lifetime, I couldn’t even foresee it passing. But the amount of people I know voting to repeal has me heartened. There are a lot of ordinary women coming forward and speaking up on things like the In Her Shoes - Women of the Eight page.

Re: the attendance padding:

Some may mock, but that's only because they can't see that everyone on the march is surrounded by several angels. (Unfortunately none of the angels are eligible to vote in the referendum)

— Ray (@ray_cun) March 10, 2018

fact

a lot of attendees are children

was thinking today about the split being one side raised to their strong opinion and the other arriving at it, whether that was fair, how true it was, what did it suggest, did it matter

then i made a pretty good apple pie

i think repeal will pass.

A lot of attendees aren’t citizens either, I’d go so far to say.

Arriving at it? Hmmm, I don’t know. I have always been strongly pro-choice as far as I can remember - I’d go so far as to say that it’s the single issue closest to my heart in terms of politics at home. But then I was growing up reading about the X case and the C case...

It’s not the way that people arrive at their opinion that matters; it’s the issue itself. Gay marriage was a simple and positive campaign comparatively - who is against love? Abortion isn’t quite so straightforward and it’s not something you can make a soft focus, media friendly case for. It’s a lot of grey where the anti choice side operates in strict black and white.

agreed

i think upthread there's discussion on how in ireland its not strictly a liberal/conservative divide (as they fall along normal lines) in that you might be surprised how a person feels about it

im not sure if that still holds true but i suspect ive a few people i kniw quite well who would be against repeal. i dont think i met anyone except my father in law who was eh out as against marriage ref

I’d agree with that. Though I’ve been surprised by the number of people I know in favour - and even more so by the numbers vocally in favour. Especially as doing so will earn you the full attention of YD and the rest.

....

we may or may not have yd in the office I'll be damned if i poke the bear if she doesnt

google noel pattern, noel patrun, nollaig o patrun for more of this malarkey

this is gonna be ugly stupid close

the tactics and behaviour and contempt for decency of the large no fringe is ... maddening, shocking, idk

LG's first post in this thread reveals a family connection

update your former ilxor .xls accordingly

It’s vmic for anti choice campaigning the world over. I’m not surprised by them. I was surprised by, for example, Farmers for Yes and “It upsets me to think of somebody’s daughter afraid, alone, unsafe, taking medication that they smuggled into the country. Afraid of breaking the law. Afraid to seek help. We can do better. We need to do better. We need to care for our women at home in Ireland.”

I’ve been desperately trying not to follow the coverage* too closely because it is important to me that it pass and I don’t want to get too involved. I’m still on the register and get a polling card delivered to my parents’ house, but of course I can’t use it.

Today was the first time I looked at the polling and yeah it’s close but it’s going to depend on turnout.

I am sure you’ve seen the thread by Paula on @ireland last week but for anyone who hasn’t, this is desperately sad and honest and is exactly why this amendment needs to go:

Ok I’m going to share a story with you regarding a crisis pregnancy I had many years ago, I have previously shared this story on my own account but think it might be good to revisit it. I was 15 when I became pregnant, 15 when I gave birth too. My eldest is now 27 #togetherforyes

— Ireland / REFCOM (@ireland) May 18, 2018

*except In Her Shoes - Women of the Eighth. I can’t get over how brave those people are for telling their stories.

otm to the stories and otm to avoid most coverage

fb have an "abroad for yes" page where theyre matching donors to people who cant afford to get home to vote under their own resources

#hometovote is worth following

feeling hopeful

high turnout reported

which is good, very good indeed

good luck eire

was just coming here to post that exact phrase

ugh

good luck ugh

friend who can vote is stuck in canada and friends that can't are in dublin trying to get the vote out. the yes campaign has been very impressive and makes me hopeful

good luck the free state

acceptable

Good luck , Ireland.

correct

I want it to pass; anything besides that is a bonus. But it would be incredible if it passed with a decent margin just to fuck all the No side off even more. No doubt they’ll be claiming #hometovote were flouting electoral law or immigrants were voting or...

I hope and think it will pass and high turnout is good but I remember the Brexit referendum as well because a lot of the high turnout was people who never normally voted coming out.

I hope we don’t have that happening here!

Exit poll at 11.20, bizarrely on the Late Late, will be drinking heavily beforehand.

Hope all the American No grotesques learn something fro this.

On a lighter note, this nuns@polls thread is incredible.

So we're all no doubt used to seeing pictures of nuns at polling stations.

In many ways, it's the cute Irish parallel of perfidious Albion's #dogsatpollingstations

— Pidge (Vote Yes pls) (@Pidge) May 24, 2018

The Catholic Church still has its loyal supporters though...

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/orange-order-abortion-no

Oh well that changes everything! Saw Nick Griffin weighing in as well.

if ever there was an argument for abortion, it's nick griffin

good luck foeti

Re: Americans campaigning for No - https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/23/europe/ireland-abortion-referendum-american-campaigners-intl/index.html

it's not like Americans to interfere in other nations's politics

Anti-choice people are the worst. Keep that madness locked up in your own home.

Sorry about the douchey Americans. I really don't understand how were allowed to continue to do that.

I was reading this piece by Sarah Jones in The New Replublic yesterday. Not so much Americans (as in the US government backing the military to overthrow someone already elected in a foreign country) as the US-based Christian Right (a weird coalition) that have spent their own time to knock on doors elsewhere:

https://newrepublic.com/article/148518/american-christians-swaying-irelands-abortion-referendum

xp ye werent! its explicitly against visa rules, but the organs of the state have turned a blind eye to all of the despicable behaviours throughout.

i gave fifty pounds, fuckin queens pounds mind you, so that two ppl could fly home from the uk solely to calm my blood after reading that article

also got into an irl argument in the street against a yank with a microphone. twas the mic really sent me over the edge.

anyway....fuckin nerves

on a plane to sf for the actual result

that nun thread is extraordinary

the Raffles of oxygen

vg

most english ppl don't know much abt england either

there's a really distinctive lack of curiosity its true. I also recently explained to somebody (from brighton) where east anglia is.

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2009%2F03%2F03%2Farticle-1154159-067F4A5C0000044D-724_233x356.jpg&f=1

people whose mind is blown by the existence of "Dún Laoghaire" and think it's some sort of niche reference that only Ireland experts will get

passed and off to himself for signing

I saw this and haven’t really followed, are they still planning to charge €300 for the procedure?

Twitter moments categorised Savita’s death as “Indian woman who died in Ireland” and it made my eye twitch, so here are my favourite pictures of the Savita mural back in May:

The scene at Savita’s mural in Dublin’s Portobello as polls closed in Ireland’s abortion referendum pic.twitter.com/VAbVPSpCgi

— Rita O'Reilly (@RitaOReilly) May 25, 2018

The Savita mural in Dublin right now @rtenews pic.twitter.com/cbE2z9nnHl

— Samantha Libreri (@SamanthaLibreri) May 26, 2018

Flowers and messages left at a mural for Savita Halappanavar, who died in 2012 after she was refused an abortion pic.twitter.com/eXGqN7vOoq

— Eleanor Barlow (@EleanorBarlow) May 26, 2018

Flowers and tributes were left at the Dublin mural of Savita Halappanavar, who died in 2012 in an Irish hospital after she was denied an abortion while suffering the complications of a septic miscarriage. “I’m so sorry. My vote was for you,” one note reads. #8thRef pic.twitter.com/b5DRnfZFs9

— Sinéad Baker (@sineadbaker1) May 26, 2018

</3

idk gyac about the charges but id imagine not, possibly that was a reporting of some of the amendments that the religious td/senator crowd were tryinf to have implemented while it went through oireachtas

stress im not sure on that tho

I guess we can crowd fund a um, fund for people who need abortions?