Today's Topics:
1. avtonom: Open the Autonomus bureau! [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #299 - Aveyron:
Robocops and armored against the zadistes (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Holand, vrije bond: Tamio Solidarity Fund - info talks in
The Hague, Amsterdam and Nijmegen (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Greece, November 25 - Day of Resistance and Struggle Against
Patriarchy, State and Capitalism By APO (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. CAB, Brazil: AGAINST HUNGER, UNEMPLOYMENT AND
EXPENSIVE AND VIOLENT LIFE FOR THE POOR. (pt)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. wsm.ie: An establishment view of the referendum that won
Repeal - In the Shadow of the 8th review - Author: Andrew N Flood
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. France, Young Libertarians - Toulouse: Who are we? (fr)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Despite the fact that everyone allegedly reads about politics only on the Internet, and
the "E" center is rampant in the country, we continue to publish the paper magazine
"Autonomus" . Unless the texts are also published on Avtonom.org - a concession to the
Internet. ---- The 38th number is well distributed: it has already been ordered by people
in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky,
Ivanovo, Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Pushkino (Moscow region),
Stary Oskol ( Belgorod region) and, naturally, in the village of Bezbozhnik (Kirov
region). ---- "Autonomy" needs people who can write, draw, and typeset well. If you do not
know how - it does not matter, you can simply distribute the magazine (at the same time,
we will send you a bunch of stickers). You can distribute it among friends, at rallies,
concerts. "Autonomy" is often taken by various subcultural stores and bookstores focused
on intellectual literature.
The creation of the Autonomus bureau is a good start for the formation of a local
anarchist group.
Connect with us
avtonomjournal@gmail.com
@AvtonomBot
vk.com/avtonom_org
facebook.com/avtonom.org
https://avtonom.org/news/otkroy-korpunkt-avtonoma
------------------------------
Message: 2
After a long sequence of one year of skirmishes, the State decided to militarize the free
commune of Amassada on October 8th. If the destruction of the buildings of the zone was
done in one day, the fight remains strong against this project of industrial windmills.
---- The state has once again distinguished itself by its democracy and its bargaining
power by sending 150 mobile gendarmes in armor, 2 armored vehicles, 1 helicopter ... on
the plain of Saint-Victor-et-Melvieu (Aveyron). It was not a surprise. The prefect in
charge of the file, parachuted by Macron for that, comes from the circle of bidasses. For
the occasion, she released her socialities to make her first field trip to the Amassada.
This is what we must call the "territorial link" and consultation. That day, the prefect
made selfies in front of the destruction of the place and directly supported the
propaganda by tweeting: " The illegal occupants are thirty on site. Any other information
is wrong. " [1].
In fact about thirty, it is more than a hundred opponents who have mobilized and have
defended the place for more than seven hours. It is also a whole village which refuses
this project for ten years now, and which supports the occupation. These residents
participated in the destruction of the documents and the model of the public inquiry to
mark their disagreement, and then testified at the "Court of Amassada" which expelled the
deportation judge ... On 8 October 2019, Militarization was not only aimed at destroying
the premises of the occupation, but also to frighten the population and thus minimize or
even ignore their opposition. Besides, not a word in the propaganda of the prefect on the
population.
In the days that followed, four opponents were rounded up and brought before the
"liberties" judge of the Rodez court. They and they will have a trial on March 11 for
various charges of "criminal association" and are currently under judicial control and
inadmissibility in Saint-Victor [1].
Militarization in all directions
The militarization and destruction of agricultural land to provide carbon credits to large
polluting companies are not isolated cases in the energy field. The deployment of state
violence remains incomparable when it comes to nuclear, as on the site of Bure, or
formerly that of Plogoff for example. The way in which the state intends to revive the
nuclear industry (see article above) announces an inevitable confrontation. One thing is
certain, it is that the development of conventional energies will not be supplanted by
renewables, they are part of the same plan in the framework of green capitalism. Neither
conventional nor industrial renewable, other worlds are to be built.
Already, the Amassada calls for weekend resistance the 1 st , 2 and 3 November to "resume
the Plain."
Naughty Reinette (UCL Aveyron)
[1] " We will resume the Plain " published on the blog of Amassada.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Aveyron-Robocops-et-blindes-contre-les-zadistes
------------------------------
Message: 3
Opstand -- Beatrijsstraat 13 -- Den Haag -- ACTIVITEIT / BENEFIET / NIEUWS ~ Door Vrije
Bond Secretariaat op 20 november 2019 -- reageer ---- Tamio Solidarity Fund - info talks
in The Hague, Amsterdam and Nijmegen ---- The "Solidarity fund for imprisoned and
persecuted militants" () from Greece was established in 2010. Since the start of Tamio
solidarity fund, the most important purpose of this structure was to ensure decent living
conditions for the imprisoned comrades, through a process that would take place within the
political movement; thereby taking the material dimension of solidarity one step beyond
family and close friendly/comrade relationships. Besides that, among the priorities of the
people who are part of the Solidarity Fund, remain the practical solidarity actions,
building communication bridges between people inside prison and those outside, and the
development of united struggles inside and outside prison walls.
All these years of its existence, besides financial support, the Solidarity Fund also
organizes political interventions with events, book presentations, publications and
translations of books or texts written by prisoners. At the same time, all these years
that the imprisoned militants have been struggling against vindictive punishments,
solitary confinement, prison transfers and tortures with protests and hunger strikes, they
have been trying to intervene with their word and action against the horror of incarceration.
It is important for us to present the Tamio solidarity fund and network with other
political spaces. Through collaboration we spread the support across borders and connect
the struggle inside and outside of the prison walls.
When and where?
21 November, 19:00
Opstand
Beatrijsstraat 12
The Hague
25 November, 19:00
MKZ
Eerste Schinkelstraat 16
Amsterdam
27 November, 20:00
De Klinker
Van Broeckhuysenstraat 46
Nijmegen
https://www.vrijebond.org/tamio-solidarity-fund/
------------------------------
Message: 4
ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLENCE IS A STATUS OF STATE AND CAPITALISM ---- November 25, designated by
the UN, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is in fact
yet another manifestation of the brutality of the state and capitalist system against
women in opposition: on November 25, 1960 they were murdered after fierce torture three
anti-dictatorial fighters, the sisters Minerva, Patria and Maria-Teresa Mirabal, from the
security men of dictator Trujillo in Saint Dominic. Today, in the context of total
bankruptcy of the system that results in escalating blockades and countless violence
against the poor, the oppressed, and the struggling, the content of November 25th is
always up to date. As it reminds us that, regardless of the cloak of power, patriarchal
violence has been a constituent of state planning over the years to terrorize fighters and
subjugate society, and to eliminate any vision of a world of equality, solidarity and
freedom. In these designs, forces and mechanisms of repression are employed to discipline
and comply with, among other things, those women who have chosen and as such to resist the
barbarism of power or retrospect to legitimize and safeguard the impunity of those
responsible. In addition, sexist violence as a method of security forces is a structural
element of state repression against the fighters as a tool aimed at terrorism and humiliation.
This is evidenced by the dozens of sexual assaults, harassment and threats against women,
schoolgirls, workers, immigrants in the neighborhood of Exarchies from the MAT occupation
army stationed in the area, beatings of protesters and demonstrators, students and
students. Arrested even in the middle of the street, the torture of anarchist militants,
such as that of comrade Lambros Goula, threats of rape, the discharge and reward of
cop-torturers, step with the cops prosecuted for the torture of detainees of the
anti-fascist march of 2012.
Patriarchal violence is present as an integral part of state and capitalist barbarism: In
the courts that imprison women who resist their rapists and on the other hand acquit
rapists. The imprisonment of refugees and immigrants in desperate conditions in
concentration camps leading them to death, as recently happened to Farid Tajik, who burned
alive in a container just minutes after giving birth to her child in a concentration camp
in Moria. Establishing a special system for the exploitation of women in workplaces, which
led to the death of Guyane Kassardzian, an Armenian immigrant when she jumped out of the
hospital window, during her shift as an Exclusive Nurse at the Hospital, trying to escape
arrest for illegal work and therefore expulsion. Promoting and disseminating social racism
and cannibalism, which targets those who are defined as "weak" in the social, class and
gender hierarchy, resulting in increased rates of violence and abuse against women and
children, and targeting the poor, the "foreign", the excluded. We do not forget the role
of DIAS police officers in the launching and killing of LGBTQI community activist Zackie
Oh and the role of the judiciary in releasing his killers. resulting in increased rates of
violence and abuse against women and children, as well as targeting the poor, the
"foreign", the excluded. We do not forget the role of DIAS police officers in the
launching and killing of LGBTQI community activist Zackie Oh and the role of the judiciary
in releasing his killers. resulting in increased rates of violence and abuse against women
and children, as well as targeting the poor, the "foreign", the excluded. We do not forget
the role of DIAS police officers in the launching and killing of LGBTQI community activist
Zackie Oh and the role of the judiciary in releasing his killers.
As fighters, as anarchists and as women, we have nothing but to stand in solidarity with
one another and all together to organize and fight side by side all over the earth, along
with all the oppressed of this world, against the everyday our forces. Through the small
and big moments of resistance - from the defense of the occupation and the great
demonstration of September 14 against the repressive campaign of the state, from the
hunger strike of the immigrant women to Petrou Ralli and the concentration of women in
Exarchia against the police officer, the resistance of the rebels to the rebel Rojava, and
by the women
fighters in Turkey to the uprising of the Zapatistas and mass fighting in Chile. To strive
to overthrow the rotten world of patriarchy, state and capitalism, and to build on its
wreckage of social equality, dignity, freedom and justice, that of women's emancipation,
of social self-governance and freedom, of anarchy. communism.
RESISTANCE TO SYSTEM VIOLENCE TARGETING COMPETITIVE WOMEN
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY AGAINST MODERN COMPLIANCE, CAPACITY, POISONING, GENDER DISCRIMINATION
ON SOCIAL REVOLUTION, ANARITY AND FREEDOM COMMUNISM
CALLS
Patras: 25/11 Appendix 18:00
Thessaloniki: 25/11 Kamara 18:00
Athens: 23/11 Kapnikarea 13:00
Group Against Patriarchy - Anarchist Political Organization
http://apo.squathost.com/
------------------------------
Message: 5
With over 200 days of Bolsonaro's rule, the plight of the people gets worse and worse.
Rich people, politicians, and mainstream journalists said passing pension reform would
pull the country out of the hole, make the economy grow and improve people's lives. But
the economy really grows is in the boss's pocket and the banker's bill. ---- Pension
reform is an attack on the retirement rights of women workers! It is a promise to the
market and not to the poor. What is called a ‘market' is the capitalists' business fight
to bite the steak and cut into the flesh of the oppressed classes. ---- The political
project of the Bolsonaro government and its sackcloth is to loosen the dogs, touch fear
and end the hard-won rights of the oppressed classes in a life of struggle and trial.
A delivery government that wants to complete and deepen the delivery of natural resources
such as oil, ore and our water to the major capitalist economies. Economies that
criminally deforest forests, allow all kinds of violence to indigenous peoples and poison
food, releasing extremely harmful chemicals for use by agribusiness.
A government that wants to sell thermoelectric plants by 2020, which will cause the worker
to increase the electricity bill. We must not forget that Brazil is a country of great
natural energy potential, with advantageous possibilities of using renewable energies such
as sun, wind, and tides.
Bolsonaro with its minister Paulo Guedes sold eight refineries of Petrobras and the
control of distributors of the company. It also ended up as a state monopoly on the gas
market, which will in practice cause the price of cooking gas and oil products to rise.
Virtually everything we consume is derived from petroleum. Gasoline and diesel that has
already been the subject of a major and powerful truck and popular strike. Bolsonaro's
project is to make Brazil become a US backyard.
A government that hates the poor and cuts into the flesh of the people.
Unemployment in the Bolsonaro Government has reached 12.1% of the population. There are
more than 13 million unemployed people. Not to mention those who have given up looking for
a job and the sheer number of workers surviving from "odd jobs" and informal work, which
increases this mass to almost 30 million.
Guedes and Bolsonaro apply an economic policy to the bosses' taste: they lower the
purchasing power of the worker's salary, leave the pedestrian screwed and unsecured in
employment, destroy job openings and limit the distribution of wealth and income.
These measures also aim to discipline the worker, blackmailing and disrupting the
collective struggle, solidarity, causing fear and suppressing strikes. By the way, the
Bolsonaro militia government has in the anti-terrorism law, signed by Dilma Roussef during
the 2013 demonstrations, a great ally in the persecution of militants and social
movements, which will conveniently be classified as terrorist movements. When in reality
the real terrorism in Brazil is that of the powerful against the health, dignity, and life
of the black and poor people of that country. Justice in Brazil is not blind, it is racist
and serves the powerful.
Technically we are already experiencing a recession, which is when the economy shrinks.
Such a scorched earth policy aims to destroy workers' wages and allow entrepreneurs to
exploit more, control more, pay less. Not to mention the debt forgiveness of bankers and
entrepreneurs, which we are forced to swallow down our throats.
This nefarious government, together with parliamentarians and businessmen, approved the
pension reform in the House of Representatives, destroying the right of retirement in
Brazil. Many will work to death without retiring. And those who were about to retire will
have to work a lot harder. The military stayed out of pension reform. They are a
privileged group that is part of the Bolsonaro government and anti-people.
The PT and the Dilma government opened the door to doom when they cut back on investments
and tampered with labor rights rules such as youth unemployment insurance. The coup
increased the degree of adjustment against the people. In the Temer government, the
Brazilian elite froze resources for education, health, and public services with PEC
95/2016. Bolsonaro and his government go further, cutting deeper into education, health,
and social services to deliver some of these services to their friends in private
enterprise and finance capital. They govern with punches and kicks to deepen chaos in
public services and poverty, further increasing the oppression that disgraces many
people's lives, destroying dreams and the hope of a decent life for all.
Poor life gets more expensive and harder. With this policy, the government made everything
increase in price. Vegetables and cereals have risen 12% this year, according to IPCA
data. To get an idea, beans have increased by 15 to 40%! Feeding is much more expensive,
while our salary is worth less. Rent rose by almost 5% in the year and public transport
increased by 7% this year alone. This policy is planned, governs the crisis by making the
poor pay the capitalist party bill.
The result of neoliberal politics backed by movements such as the MBL and also by
religious leaders and TV stars is hunger, misery, exploitation and a more oppressed and
suffocated country. "Economic Freedom" is the privilege of the bourgeois to take the skin
off the pawn. In mute, the government has approved one more attack on workers: Provisional
Measure 881, which receives the unfortunate nickname "MP of Economic Freedom" is a
legalization of the employer's abuse of his employees.
It's another hole for those who work to sink. When work is slack and timekeeping on
Sundays has only one side that wins. Every worker knows that this advantage is not ours.
That the "extra" that fucking Sunday work will be missed if the company does not pay
compensation and that if you have no hours recorded the supervisor, manager or executioner
controls you as you want and throws everything in the bank of hours not to pay an extra.
Alongside the rising cost of living and the reduction of the people to a worker plundered
by their rights, the Brazilian state radicalizes the process of killing in the peripheries
and in the countryside. In the Altamira prison in Pará 62 lives were brutally taken by the
"let the poor kill each other". The recent murder of 5 young black men and the 8-year-old
Agatha girl in Rio de Janeiro, spurred on by Governor Witzel's genocidal policy, has
launched a project that underpins the Bolsonaro government, based on praise for torture,
extermination, mass incarceration. and in the murderous militias as associated power.
The exit will come on the streets, with popular struggle and direct action!
Faced with this picture of pain, poverty, and repression, the exit will only come from the
streets, from the organized people. Within a few months of government, we have had a
terrible sample of the deepening of the Police Adjustment State. We want a decent life,
food on the table, decent working conditions, public health, and education; We do not want
to see our youth exterminated by the armed wing of a racist and genocidal state.
We want distributed wealth and direct democracy to decide our destiny. To counter these
attacks, direct action, solidarity, and organization will be the weapons in the fight
against the further destruction of our lives.
Wait for the next elections? Not!!! We don't have time for this! Only the people save the
people! Time to stop the voters, to build independence from governments and bosses. Build
a popular mobilization that is decisive for its explosion in the streets, at work, in
villages, slums, and suburbs. May the government of adjustment and repression, which is
not limited to the electoral parties of bourgeois democracy, stop the popular revolt.
Facing life dear to the poor and the working class:
Against the genocide of the indigenous people and the black people:
Popular street fighting to defeat the attacks and stop the destructive action of the
Bolsonaro government!
Strengthen combatant and grassroots unionism, social movements, education, and popular
culture!
No less right! May the riches be distributed to the people! This is what we want, no more
and no less!
[CAB]Contra a Fome, o Desemprego e a Vida Cara e Violenta para os Pobres.
https://anarquismopr.org/2019/10/06/cab-contra-a-fome-o-desemprego-e-a-vida-cara-e-violenta-para-os-pobres/
https://awsm.nz/?p=4014
------------------------------
Message: 6
Book length histories of the Repeal referendum have started to appear. That this second
one is an autobiography is in itself a testament to how long the 8th Amendment ruled over
us. The 8th amendment takes up about half the space of Peter Boylan's ‘In the Shadow of
the 8th'. Boylan was an obstetrician who retired from Holles St in 2016, he was a
prominent spokesperson for Repeal in the referendum of 2018 and was then central to the
implementation of abortion access in the aftermath of winning that referendum. In telling
the story of his medical career he tells the story of how the 8th shaped it. ---- His
perspective on the struggle against the 8th is very much an establishment viewpoint.
Indeed the grassroots movement to force a referendum doesn't get much of a look in at all,
outside of the mention of demonstrations following the death of Savita in 2012. His
account focuses on what was happening in medical and government circles in the years
following 2012, with activism only reappearing when he is asked to speak at the March 2018
launch of Together for Yes. The Abortion Rights Campaign only gets 3 mentions, and all of
the form of introducing a person as ‘X of the Abortion Rights Campaign' in the section on
the launch of Together for Yes. For the purpose of the review I'm not going to dwell on
the obvious problems with his approach but rather on what useful information the book has
to tell us about the successful campaign to get rid of the hated 8th. As such this book is
another partial telling of a story, a story that cannot be told from any single viewpoint.
The middle third of the book is very much focused on the last 6 years of the struggle to
get rid of the 8th amendment, a story Boylan starts with the death of Savita rather than
the earlier protests against the Youth Defence abortion shaming billboards. The early
chapters do provide some useful context, in particular for readers outside Ireland or
indeed younger readers living here. In particular the chapter that tells the story of the
struggle at the National Maternity Hospital from 1992-1994 to allow elective
sterilisations (tubal ligations). At the time church control of the hospital meant these
were banned.
When he announced that elective sterilisation were going to be provided in a 1992
newspaper interview he was summoned to the Archbishop's palace,
"Bishop Moriarty did most of the talking and got straight to the point in relation to the
introduction of sterilization in Holles Street. What I was doing, in their view, was
resulting in women having operations that were not medically indicated and were therefore
unjustified. Their argument was based on the orthodox Catholic doctrine that the marital
act, sexual intercourse, had to remain ‘ open to the gift of new life '. ... I also
informed them that I was not going to reverse the decision, as I felt that that would not
be in the best interests of women. Sterilization, I said, was a matter between a woman and
her doctor, and the Catholic Church should not interfere in the doctor - patient
relationship" (p. 48).
Three years later the number of sterilisations performed had risen from 10 a year to 445,
which is not to say all restrictions on access have been lifted.
The horror of the 8th
The autobiography is most useful in relation to understanding the medical, legal and
legislative background of the Repeal victory, and the limits of that victory. This isn't
the story of the movement in the streets, that has yet to be written, but of the impact of
the 8th in the hospitals and the manoeuvrings of some medical workers to get a government
to finally call a referendum to get rid of it. The chapters on the death of Savita
Halappanavar and the denial of abortion and then imposition of a caesarean as an
‘alternative' on Ms Y are essential if harrowing accounts of the dreadful impact the 8th
amendment had on their lives. Savita and Ms Y were both migrant women of colour, a group
for whom the 8th had additional impacts including in the case of Savita & her family not
suspecting that such a piece of misogynist legislation existed.
It may be worth quoting from Boylan's description of what Ms Y went through at length to
underline the additional barriers migrant women faced under the 8th and some of which
still exist today and others which have been removed.
He summarises it as
"The process was becoming positively Kafkaesque. Ms Y spoke no English, had no money, was
severely traumatized and was living in direct provision accommodation"
and then details just what many of the barriers were;
"The young woman who became known as Ms Y was a refugee from a particularly violent war
zone in Africa. She arrived in Ireland on 28 March 2014. She had been raped repeatedly,
and did not know she was pregnant until a test was done as part of a health screening
check in early April .... On 8 April she was seen at the IFPA and the pregnancy was again
confirmed. Ms Y, who did not speak English, became very distressed, but not (yet)
suicidal, and requested a termination. The legal situation in Ireland was explained to her
through an interpreter: she was not eligible for a termination in Ireland because her life
was not at risk ... At the end of May, the question of adoption was discussed at a
consultation at the IFPA. She was now fifteen weeks pregnant. Her response was clear - she
would ‘ rather die than have this baby'. Ms Y was given forms to fill out, and it was
explained to her that she would need nearly €1,300 in order to travel to the Netherlands
for a termination ... She would have to arrange the appointment in the clinic herself,
since the Regulation of Information Act 1995 specifically prohibited anyone making an
appointment on her behalf. She also needed a Garda National Immigration card number, an up
-to -date bank account showing sufficient funds to cover her journey, a copy of medical
travel insurance, details of booked accommodation and details of return travel
arrangements that could be secured only by making a credit card payment. Temporary travel
documents from the Irish National Immigration Service also required that she have a PPS
number ... On her own initiative she took a ferry to Liverpool around this time in the
hope of accessing a termination there. UK immigration officers detained her on arrival and
sent her back to Ireland." p111
Boylan brings us through all the medical details as well as the enquiries and picks apart
the dishonest deflections deployed by anti-choice activists of whom he says "Describing
oneself as pro-life has always seemed to me to be either a cynical or an unthinking
attempt to occupy the moral high ground while demonstrating little or no empathy with
fellow human beings who are mothers, sisters, friends and colleagues" (p. 76).
Boylan was involved in many of the investigations that followed Savita's death concluding,
"At the end of all five investigations, there could be little doubt that had Savita
Halappanavar's pregnancy been terminated on either the Monday or the Tuesday, she would
not have died. It was also clear that there were serious systemic problems in University
Hospital Galway that gave rise to an environment that was not conducive to patient safety.
As the HIQA inquiry made clear, these were not confined to Galway. The events in Galway
shone a spotlight on chronic underinvestment in Irish maternity services over decades (p.
99)."
He doesn't pull punches in talking about the problems created by our chronically under
funded health service, both here and in the later chapters that talk about the problems
this created when it came to providing surgical abortions.
His straightforward statements putting responsibility on the 8th for the death of Savita
made him a target for the anti-choice movement in 2012 and the years that followed.
Running through the later part of the book is a commentary on the anti-choice movement,
the efforts they made to ‘get him' and some well deserved scorn thrown in their direction.
He writes that on May 1st 2013,
"a group of eleven doctors wrote to the national newspapers, saying that ‘ much of the
public attention appears to have been directed at the expert opinion of Dr Peter Boylan,
who suggested that Irish law prevented necessary treatment to save Ms Halappanavar's life.
We would suggest that this is a personal view, not an expert one. ' It was signed by eight
consultant obstetricians, a consultant in emergency medicine , a consultant microbiologist
and a consultant anaesthetist. All were known for their anti - abortion views, and some
had spoken at anti-abortion events or in the media, including the lead signatory, Dr John
Monaghan, as well as Professor Eamon O'Dwyer, Professor John Bonnar and Dr Trevor Hayes
(p.89)."
Boylan presents this attack as managed by anti-choice campaigners including John McGurk.
We are informed
"I subsequently reported all eleven signatories to the Medical Council on the grounds that
the letter and its distribution by a known Pro Life campaigner was a concerted and
coordinated attack on my professional reputation."
And that,
"In the course of their responses to the Medical Council none of the signatories admitted
knowing John McGuirk. This puzzled me . If none of the signatories knew of McGuirk, how
had he managed to get a copy of the letter before publication?" However "The Medical
Council did not find the doctors guilty of professional misconduct, and I decided not to
take the case any further: as far as I was concerned my point had been made. I had learned
something about anti - abortion campaigners, however, that proved useful in the years
ahead. They agree a party line on an issue, and then various spokespeople advance it
across multiple platforms - radio, television, print and social media - over a few days
(p. 90) ."
Pills - direct action delivered
Boylan usefully admits that one of the major pressures for change was the direct action of
thousands of people who were supplying and taking abortion pills illegally.
"The key point I had decided to argue to the Committee was that in 2017 the Eighth
Amendment was unworkable. Thirty - four years earlier, when it was inserted in the
Constitution in 1983, the internet was in its infancy and the abortion pill did not exist.
Now, however, we knew that the number of women buying abortion pills online and importing
them illegally was on the increase (p.187)."
Notable here is the work of Need Abortion Ireland, who worked with Women Help to provide
guidance, advice and financial support for people wishing to secure safe abortion pills
online. Need Abortion Ireland disbanded in January 2019 but access barriers still remain
around access to abortion services for in people in rural areas, direct provision and
homeless who may still rely on self administrating a medical abortion.
This point is repeated later in the book: "A major concern for the Institute was the
increasing importation of abortion pills and their use without medical supervision (p. 203)."
There is valuable insight into the attitudes of medical professionals here. For years,
Doctors for Choice was the only visible pro-choice voice emerging from the medical
profession. Here they are mentioned only in the context of the Citizens Assembly on page
119. Boylan himself admits that,
"At the time of the 1983 referendum on the Eighth Amendment I was working day and night in
Holles Street, and the campaign passed me by almost completely. Looking back, I find this
ironic, given how central a role it played in my later life (p. 19)."
Fast forward and in the aftermath of the death of Savita he says, "With repeal of the
Eighth in mind, in September 2014 I decided to stand for election to the position of
chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (IOG)"
For a very long period, the only medical workers taking a public stand were the small
handful of GPs around Doctors for Choice.
Boylan observes,
"Somewhere in the middle were a number of colleagues who had surprised me during the
Citizens' Assembly and Oireachtas Committee deliberations by expressing the view that the
debate was of no interest or concern to them. Even more surprising: some of these
colleagues were women. Irrespective of their views, they were detached from the debate,
seeing it, I think, as a political or legal matter - a ‘women's rights issue' - that did
not concern them in their day - to-day medical practice. Perhaps it was relevant that the
political impetus for repeal had come from the Labour Party, which had opposed the
amendment in 1983, and from radical left-wing politicians, not the natural milieu of many
Irish medical consultants (p. 196)."
Boylan's eye view of the campaign
On the campaign itself, Boylan is hardly an expert witness. Indeed as he says,
"When I had turned up for the launch of Together for Yes on 22 March, I had not seen
myself as ‘ campaigning ' in a political sense. I had based my words that day on my
medical experience and would have been more than happy to address groups who opposed
repeal, but none invited me to speak ... So, while I didn't consider myself a campaigner ,
when Amy Rose Harte asked me if I would become more involved with Together for Yes, I
agreed . Since I had already been accused of ‘ campaigning ', I figured I might as well be
hanged for a sheep as a lamb (p.208)."
Boylan, who would be aware of the criticism the campaign came under from political
journalists when it was in progress only for those same journalists to declare victory was
always inevitable afterwards, is careful to credit the work done saying,
"It was obvious that the Together for Yes leadership was working to a clearly defined
strategy that moved through well - planned phases , with the focus on personal stories and
medical advice. Essentially, this was a campaign being run quite brilliantly by an
exceptional group of women (p.208)."
In these chapters he namechecks dozens of the Yes campaigners he came across, even if
there isn't the available space to list all 19,000 who canvassed. He does write,
"Everywhere we met enthusiastic young volunteers . Their determination to make things
right for women and change Ireland was palpable. All told of conversations they were
having with parents and grandparents, and on doorsteps around the country. Some of those
conversations were difficult, but they persisted. Sometimes, they said, they were pushing
an open door (p. 210)."
Perhaps one of the hardest aspects of the aftermath is few of those foot soldiers can get
a mention. Although thousands put their lives on hold to ensure victory, only a selection
of their names can make it to the books that are now being written.
His observations on the anti-choice No side during the referendum are of interest as he
was targeted by their leadership during and after in his various campaign appearances.
He notes that,
"The problem for the anti - repeal campaigns , however, was that as time went on and
people understood the issues and heard personal stories, they realized that, far from
being ‘ simple ', the situations that women might find themselves in were complex and
nuanced . And in such circumstances the No side campaigners had no solutions to offer
(p.213)."
Of the infamous Clare Byrne Live TV debate, which he describes as like a "bad episode of
The Jeremy Kyle Show or as I was to tell Pat Kenny on Newstalk the next morning, like
something straight out of ‘ the Trump playbook '".
He then says,
"Because the No side had two separate campaigns, it was never quite clear in advance who
would appear at debates, especially as relationships between the two groups began to
deteriorate in the last couple of weeks before the referendum vote (p. 218)."
He adds that during the ‘debate',
"not one parent from TFMR was asked to speak, even though they had been specifically
invited and told they would have an opportunity to tell their stories. On the panel we
could hear No supporters in the audience hissing and jeering the TFMR parents with taunts
of ‘ murderers ', but this was inaudible to the TV audience at home (p. 219)."
Overall there is little to argue with his analysis towards that end that,
"relations between the two No campaigns - Save The 8th and Love Both - were deteriorating.
Between them they had fewer volunteers than the Yes side and were getting tired and
stretched. Egos were also starting to dominate. Buoyed by her Claire Byrne Live
appearance, Maria Steen believed she would be a strong performer in further media events,
and this resulted in Cora Sherlock being marginalized . In the final week the No campaign
imploded. A huge chink emerged in their central argument when they started hinting that
something could be done for fetal abnormalities without repeal. Not only was this untrue,
but the shift in position came too late, and, crucially, it undermined their core message
that there were no problems with the Eighth and that termination was always wrong. Also,
they couldn't find enough doctors to present their case (p.223)."
Inside view on implementation
Probably one of the most useful sections of the book will be Boylan's account of what
happened after the referendum victory when he phoned Minister Simon Harris and, "suggested
that someone needed to drive the project and coordinate the different elements, and if he
though it might be useful, I was available. The Minister agreed".
As Boylan was central to the implementation process, his observations on it carry a lot of
weight, between then and the end of the year he says he "attended 83 meetings, dialled
into daily conference calls, and visited most of the maternity hospitals or maternity
units around the country".
In particular Boyle locates the most significant flaw in the legislation, the entirely
medically unjustified 3 day waiting period in "a political compromise designed to give
Táinaiste Simon Coveney cover to support the government's repeal position." On page 249 he
reveals there was even a last minute fear that the insertion of a 3 day waiting period
into the bill might lead to defeat of the legislation in the Senate as "pro-choice
Senators might vote against it."
In terms of the review of legislation in late 2021 the removal of that waiting period has
to be a key demand. Even establishment figures like Boylan present it as resulting from
internal Fine Gael maneuvering. This further underlines why it has to go. Likewise its
also worth remembering that the Citizens Assembly had a majority for abortion on
request/demand. It was the politicians who reduced that to the current 12 weeks.
It's worth noting in passing that the documents outlining the significant flaws in the
legislation prepared by the Abortion Rights Campaign and other activist groups don't even
get a mention in this section. One would wonder if they were even read in the return to
business as usual once the work of winning the referendum was done and policy returned to
the realm of politicians and senior medics. Boylan reveals here the very limited scope
activist groups had to influence the legislation through lobbying and thus the importance
of street protests like the annual March for Choice.
This section of the book underlines the chronic lack of investment in healthcare. The
discussion on the practicalities of ensuring hospitals provide surgical abortions is far
more caught up in the problems of a medical services already stretched beyond breaking
point than it is in anti-choice sabotage and conscientious objection. Many of the current
problems with abortion provision are problems of the state of the healthcare system in
general and the way it treats women in particular. Repeal was never going to change that,
Fine Gael neoliberalism remains at the helm there.
While the closing chapters on the finalising of the legislation after the referendum and
then its implementation are of great interest, it's also were Boylan's account setting
gets out of hand. Up to this the point, his scorn has been directed at various bishops,
anti-choice medics and the anti-choice campaigners. In Chapter 19, which focuses on
post-referendum implementation, he rips into a range of medical figures whom he considers
to be have been too hesitant when it came to implementation, in particular those involved
with the Dublin maternity hospitals.
He says ‘at the time of writing', so presumably around August, that 10 out of 19 Irish
hospitals are proving full abortion services with the goal of all 19 doing so. However, he
worries that smaller units like Kilkenny may be sabotaged if all the consultants there
claim to be conscientious objectors. After a slow start 325 GPs have signed up as abortion
providers. 80% of abortions are provided by GPs (who can provide medical abortion up to 9
weeks), that average is rising towards 90%.
Winning seldom means the end of a struggle
Returning to an earlier chapter Boylan tells the story of how in 1978, a doctor Dermot
MacDonald working at the National Maternity Hospital, ‘wanted to perform a sterilization
operation on a woman who had serious medical and social problems. He informed consultants
and other staff, and also the archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Ryan, chairman of the hospital
board, of his intention.'
After protests from some staff grew,
"Archbishop Ryan put it to Dr MacDonald that this might be a resigning matter . MacDonald,
however, was determined and proceeded with the sterilization, assisted by Declan Meagher,
his immediate predecessor, and a number of younger nurses".
In the aftermath,
"John Stronge, in conjunction with the ethics committee, laid down a policy expressly
forbidding the procedure as a method of family planning. It was permitted only for medical
reasons, where it was clear that future pregnancies would be dangerous for a woman (p. 45)."
I remember speaking at an anarchist conference in Spain around 1994 and as part of an
introduction to Ireland saying there was no divorce. Uproar broke out around the hall and
someone explained that they thought the translator had made an error and that I meant you
could not remarry in church. No, I had to explain, there really was no divorce at all. Two
years later, by only 0.3%, Ireland voted in a referendum to introduce very restrictive
divorce provision.
I turned 18 the year of an earlier failed attempt to introduce divorce. In the decades
since I went from being handed an injunctions for simply distributing the Womens
Information Network phone number, through the period where books with British clinic
contact details were removed from public libraries to the current situation where an
estimated 5,000 abortion will be provided in Ireland this year . Even in the first month
of operation the number of women giving Irish addresses while accessing abortion in the UK
had fallen by ¾ according to BPAS figures. The 25% initially having to still go to Britain
reduced further as access spreads, the most recent figure we found suggested it was 15% in
March 2019. It is the case that because some are left behind by current legislation there
will always be some forced to travel, and worse still others unable to access abortion
here but also unable travel.
For people in countries where abortion provision has existed for decades, the limitations
of what has been achieved stand out. For those of us who lived for decades under ‘the
shadow of the 8th' the victory of May 2018 still seems overwhelming, something few of us
expected to see. Boylan's account perhaps helps to understand just how transformative
Repeal was, even as we move to tear down the restrictions put into the legislation by the
politicians jockeying for position.
Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter)
Addendum: This and the previous Its a Yes book I reviewed mean we now have a top down view
of much of the process behind the referendum win. Huge gaps remain in the story and I'm
interested in helping to fill those. Few people can write books (or lengthy reviews) so in
particular if you consider yourself an anarchist and you want your story recorded email me
at andrewnflood AT gmail.com and I'll record and upload an audio interview with you. See
https://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnflood/winning-repeal-lessons-abortion-ireland
Subject: Repeal 8th
Topics: Gender
Geography: National
Source: Newsroom
Type: Analysis
Author: Andrew N Flood
https://wsm.ie/c/referendum-won-repeal-shadow-8th-review
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Message: 7
A reaction to the current organization of society. Young Libertarians form a group of
young people organized according to the libertarian principles: horizontality,
self-management in the diffusion of anarchist and revolutionary ideas ... where each one
is invested to build an egalitarian society, solidary, non-authoritarian, without leaders,
nor prophets. ---- Our functioning is based on the libertarian principles , that is to say
that all the decisions are taken during weekly meetings, where each member participates in
the collective decisions based on the absolute consensus ... The control of each militant
symbolizes the direct democracy, the self-management, ... The debate allows the moral and
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This balance is fundamental to avoid hierarchization, the seizure of power ...
The imperative mandate allows us to annihilate power , since any task is assigned to the
individual by the group (during weekly meetings) on a voluntary basis. Young Libertarians
now have a treasurer and a secretary. The agent may be dismissed at any time by the
collective will and by his own will, and he must also report on the progress of his work.
Power therefore belongs to the group, without the individual being harmed.
Freedom of expression is only complete when one gives one's own means of financing. In the
sense that we only deal with the repressive forces representing the state and its allies
to ask for subsidies. Our funds come only from the participation of activists and sales of
our newspapers and brochures: we encourage our supporters to contribute to this free press
by donating.
Our activities are varied: during the year, there is of course the design of the newspaper
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https://jeuneslibertaires.noblogs.org/nous-connaitre/
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