Belfast's Marie Stopes clinic -- the last thing vulnerable women need is a culture war over abortion

Dawn Purvis at the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast

At the very start of October, I became one of the official diaspora. I have a new job (in the glamorous world of TV production) in a new city (Manchester) and generally couldn’t be more chuffed.

What I am decidedly unchuffed about though is news from the city I left behind: Belfast. It seems that the unholy (and I use that term advisedly) forces of anti-choice zealotry are to descend upon Great Victoria Street this week to protest a Marie Stopes clinic that is opening there and eventually try to shut it down. Those opposing the clinic such as politician Jim Allister, a man who has found himself back in the 1950’s without a DeLorean, and Precious Life spokeswoman Bernadette Smyth claim that there is no need or want for such a clinic in Northern Ireland. Riiiight...

1,007 women went to England and Wales from Northern Ireland last year for an abortion. Expressed as a percentage of the whole population that accounts for 0.056% of the population; a twentieth of a percent. Bernadette Smyth suggests herself the amount of women traveling for abortions has reduced by a third over the last 15 years.  So why then, given the NI public’s supposed attitudes to abortion and the statistically miniscule amount of women from there who’ve availed of them, does a Marie Stopes clinic constitute such a moral menace? You’d think if that was the case they’d just let them set up, see tumbleweed go through their premises, lose money and pack up again. But no, logic never was one of the hallmarks of the Every Sperm Is Sacred Patrol.

Read more: Major security for Northern Ireland’s first abortion clinic in Belfast

Alas, the abortion debate lies uneasily at the intersection between compassionate pragmatism and pupil-dilating absolutism. The Marie Stopes clinic will provide a range of sexual health services, one of which will be providing a pill for women up to nine weeks pregnant to take if they, for only the most serious health reasons, no longer wish to be pregnant. Even though Northern Ireland’s abortion laws are literally an era behind the rest of the UK (abortion has been legal since 1967 in England, Wales and Scotland), this much is currently legal. And yet, as is the case in the South, hardline anti-choicers want to take something that isn’t legal (and isn’t even under threat of becoming legal any time soon) and make it super duper illegal.

One thing pro and anti choice people do agree on though is that the ideal number of abortions a year would be zero. But, living as we do in a far from ideal world, there has to be some facility for those thousand or so women who desperately need help. If it were only one woman in the whole province in need of that help, the Marie Stopes clinic’s presence would still be justified.

But try telling that to those who proclaim to be pro-life but never say a word about a child’s welfare post-womb, picket services for vulnerable women and throw words like “murder” around while they’re doing it. It never fails to amaze that for people who seem to care so deeply about the life of the unborn, they can be so callous in their treatment of actual human beings.

The trampling of women's rights - Pussy Riots imprisonment, Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments, and abortion legislation in Ireland

Internationally women's rights are
taking a trouncing

In the political sphere in the last few weeks, women and women’s rights have been trampled over to such an extent it leaves me mourning the death of political enlightenment and decency (if, that is, it was ever alive at all).

In Russia members of Pussy Riot were jailed by a humorless, senseless but sadly far from powerless state patriarchy, causing uproar around the world. And in the States, the anti-abortion lobby have become terrifyingly and vocally absolutist.

Granted, America’s pro-life lobby have always been intense (some of them are so pro-life if they find a doctor who runs an abortion clinic, they’ll kill him) but at the water’s edge of the argument were always the delicate matters of life of the mother, rape and incest. Of late, that Rubicon has been crossed in dramatic, reckless fashion.

At this stage, there’s probably not a person in the world who hasn’t heard Senate candidate for Missouri Todd Akin’s thoughts on “legitimate rape”. It takes a special kind of warped to have such single-minded fidelity to a position that you’ll be willing to believe that a woman has the biological capability to shout “Halt, friend or foe” at a violent sexual attacker’s sperm. Had he just been one rogue lunatic, it would have been one thing. But then the floodgates opened.

Once Akin had a go, Republican quotes on their views about rape and abortion sort of went viral. Mike Huckabee was quoted as saying that some terrific people were born out of rape. A minor Missouri politician suggested rape victims who fell pregnant should consider their baby a gift. Even old quotes were brought to the forefront, with former candidate for Texas governor Clayton Williams’ suggestion that, if a rape was inevitable, they should “relax and enjoy it”.  And then, to add insult to injury, Vice President Paul Ryan referred to rape as a method of contraception, and the Republicans choose to codify such extreme views in their party platform.  Whatever your thoughts on the morality of abortion, when malevolence and casual lunacy such as this gets deposed into mainstream public discourse, something is badly, badly wrong.

Abortion is also finding its way back on to the discussion table in Ireland. I’ve talked a while ago about the likes of Youth Defence and their preoccupation with the unborn, and unhinged as they are at least they have conviction, unlike our craven government who have flailed around by putting an expert group together to report on how to deal with an issue that should have been legislated for 20 years ago. And then, you have Cardinal Sean Brady wading in, urging a(nother) referendum to be run on the matter, a campaign he wants to be heavily involved in. Which is a bit bloody rich, to put it mildly.

Of late, I’ve been using this column to highlight some of the things Ireland should prioritize in the future in the lead up to President Higgins’ Being Young & Irish workshops and seminar. And while I’ve been focusing on specific matters like education and employment and the diaspora, no matter what the issue at hand it should be underpinned by a rational civic and civil means of conversation where people can respectfully discuss issues honestly, without cynicism or rigidity. We need it as soon as we can because hysteria is getting us nowhere.

Ireland needs to get serious about mental health - Kate Fitzgerald and Gary Speed's untimely death starts conversations

Irish Examiner's artwork attempting to highlight this major issue in Ireland

At the tail end of last week I found myself struck dumb by two tragic deaths. On Saturday afternoon I read a touching tribute on the Irish Times website to Kate Fitzgerald, the 25-year-old who had helped make the Irish branch of the Democrats Abroad a formidable force in recent times.

And then, the following day, I heard of the passing of Gary Speed, a 42-year-old veteran Premier League footballer and manager of the Welsh International team. Both committed suicide.

It’s horrible enough when young people die, not least when those young people publicly embodied such admirable qualities as did Kate and Gary. But for them to take their own lives adds a whole other terrible dimension to the sadness.

The most heartbreaking thing of all is how suicide confounds conventional logic. “Why?” is a question the answer of which will always be out of reach. Both these people had so much to live for; Kate was a rising star in a number of fields, while Gary had a wife, two kids, a glittering playing career behind him and a promising management career ahead of him. On the face of it, there couldn’t possibly be a problem. But that’s not where problems lie.
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And that is why we have to get serious about mental health. Really, really serious. We’ve made great strides admittedly from the days where victims of suicide couldn’t even be buried on consecrated ground, but we still haven’t gone far enough. We still think of mental ill-health when we hear the phrase mental health. Stigma still exists, embarrassment still looms large, we’re only too happy to internalise. People who are suffering with mental health issues often want to spare their friends and family an awkward conversation or generally bothering them.

We’re still not talking enough, not nearly enough, about mental health.

A couple of months ago I was facilitating a workshop for the Donegal Youth Council at their AGM, the topic of which was mental health. One thing I found interesting was that while everyone was in favour of better services for people struggling with depression or anxiety, the number went down dramatically when I asked how many would avail of those same services.

To get to where we need to be with mental health, we need to do two vital things: we need first to get friends talking to friends about this subject comfortably. And when we’ve cracked that, hopefully people who need further help can avail of it with all the level of shame and stigma as going to buy a carton of milk.

But until then, we need to be open. We need to accept that this isn’t "Other People’s Problem". We need to accept that this can happen to anyone and that it’s as treatable as a physical ailment.

We need to look out for everyone, even the ones who seem the strongest of will or the life and soul of the party. They may the ones putting on the bravest face. We need to be subject to one another. We need to keep talking about this.