[Pants-of-dog]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44256152

The Republic of Ireland has voted overwhelmingly to overturn the abortion ban by 66.4% to 33.6%.
A referendum held on Friday resulted in a landslide win for the repeal side.
Currently, abortion is only allowed when a woman's life is at risk, but not in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality.
The Eighth Amendment, which grants an equal right to life to the mother and unborn, will be replaced.
The declaration was made at Dublin Castle at 18:13 local time.
The only constituency to vote against repealing the Eighth amendment was Donegal, with 51.9% voting against the change.
A vote in favour of repeal paves the way for the Dáil (Irish Parliament) to legislate for change which would see the introduction of a much more liberal regime.
In 2015 the country voted overwhelmingly to legalise same-sex marriage in a historic referendum.
Reacting to the result, the taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar, who campaigned in favour of liberalisation, said it was "a historic day for Ireland," and that a "quiet revolution" had taken place.
Mr Varadkar told crowds at Dublin Castle the result showed the Irish public "trust and respect women to make their own decision and choices."
He added: "It's also a day when we say no more. No more to doctors telling their patients there's nothing can be done for them in their own country, no more lonely journeys across the Irish Sea, no more stigma as the veil of secrecy is lifted and no more isolation as the burden of shame is gone."
He said that some had voted yes with "pride", but many had voted yes with "sorrowful acceptance and heavy hearts".
Mr Varadkar said he understood that those who had voted against repeal would be unhappy.
He said he had a message for them: "I know today is not welcome and you may feel this country has taken the wrong turn, that this country is one you no longer recognise.
"I want to reassure you that Ireland today is the same as it was last week, but more tolerant, open and respectful."
In three months time, Pope Francis will travel to Ireland and find a country undoing part of the legacy of a previous papal visit.
In 1983, four years after the triumphal visit of Pope John Paul II, the Irish people put the Eighth Amendment into their constitution.
The amendment gave equal rights to life to both the mother and the unborn.
Friday's vote, which paves the way for parliamentarians to liberalise abortion law, represents a seismic shift.
It also represents another sign of the societal change that has taken place in the Republic, coming just three years after the country officially passed the same sex marriage referendum with 62% in favour.
Counting began at 09:00.
After the polls were published, one of the main anti-abortion campaigns conceded it had lost the vote.
The Save The 8th campaign described the result as a "tragedy of historic proportions".
"The unborn child no longer has a right to life recognised by the Irish state," said its spokesman John McGuirk.
However, he vowed that No campaigners would continue to protest, "if and when abortion clinics are opened in Ireland".
The leader of the main Irish opposition party, Micheál Martin of Fianna Fáil, said the vote was the "dawn of a new era".
He said he had wrestled with the issue, but added the people had made the right decision and it would mean better care for women in Irish hospitals.
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, whose party campaigned in favour of a Yes vote, said: "We have without doubt done right by Irish women for this generation and many to come."
Amnesty International hailed the result as a "momentous win for women's rights" that "marks the beginning of a new Ireland".
Northern Ireland's abortion laws
The vote will have repercussions for women north of the border, as Northern Ireland has the strictest abortion laws in the UK.
Cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality are not considered grounds for a legal termination.
The UK's Women and Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt said the predicted landslide vote gave "hope" to Northern Ireland.
Grainne Teggart of Amnesty International UK said the people of Ireland have "given hope to women around the world". But she added Northern Ireland is still subject to restrictive abortion laws.
"It's hypocritical, degrading and insulting to Northern Irish women that we are forced to travel for vital healthcare services but cannot access them at home," Ms Teggart said.
"We cannot be left behind in a corner of the UK and on the island of Ireland as second-class citizens."
Former Northern Ireland health minister Jim Wells said the expected result was a "grave threat" to the unborn child in Northern Ireland.
Mr Wells, a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician, claimed it was "inevitable" that abortion clinics would be set up in border towns to "promote their services to Northern Ireland women".
"It will be much easier to terminate a child's life if this can be done at a clinic in Dundalk or Letterkenny rather than flying to London or Manchester," he added.

A small step towards recognising the integrity of women’s bodies.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

This is the darkest chapter in Irish history, a history already soaked with blood and injustice. The corrupt politicians foreign meddlers and mob mentality has won the day and we will pay with the lives of our unborn children. You talk about the integrity of womens bodies but what about the integrity of the bodies of innocent unborn children both male and female.

There are thousands of people alive today working hard laughing and making a life for themselves who would not be here without the protection of the 8th ammendment. Many of whom no doubt who have now voted to remove that protection from generations to come.

Ireland is no more, Ireland is dead and buried and lost forever. It may aswell have been attacked with a hundred nuclear bombs. The day will come when the protection for the unborn will once again be reinstated into the constitution but it will be too late. My love for this country died with the innocence of our unborn precious babies.

[B0ycey]

This is the darkest chapter in Irish history, a history already soaked with blood and injustice.

You are consistent JJJ87, so perhaps I understand you sentiment. But choice doesn't prevent women who are anti-abortion from having children. It just gives an option for people who are faced with difficult decision to be able to make a decision that is right for them. Many of your country folk seem to agree. It was quite a victory for a Catholic nations actually.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

At the end of the day @B0ycey that choice is to end a human life. I cannot accept that choice. Especially when it is the life a baby.

[B0ycey]

At the end of the day @B0ycey that choice is to end a human life. I cannot accept that choice. Especially when it is the life a baby.

For sure. But nobody is asking you to accept it. You have a voice to air your opposition. But this vote does not prevent anyone who is against abortion from fulfilling their aims of giving birth. It just gives someone a choice if they are faced with a difficult decision.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

This isn't about pregnancy or birth. This is about protecting human lives in all forms whether it is someone being shot and killed in a robbery or an unwanted baby.

An unborn baby is an individual human life. One that when exterminated will never exist again.

[Nonsense]

For sure. But nobody is asking you to accept it. You have a voice to air your opposition. But this vote does not prevent anyone who is against abortion from fulfilling their aims of giving birth. It just gives someone a choice if they are faced with a difficult decision.

What is so 'difficult' about a 'choice' of whether, or not, to take a 'pill' or use 'contraception' to prevent an 'unwanted' pregnancy?
I get the point about the consequences of 'rape', or pressure from the kiddy- fiddling Catholic Church, but please don't insult the intelligence of the majority of people, men or women who think the 'choice' being made is really anything other than about 'second thoughts' after a Friday night out with the other girls on the 'pull'.

I also understand where the subversive 'Liberal' brigade are coming from, the same direction as the 'Tories', who support anything that , gets 'mothers' off the Benefits System', so that their 'friends' reap the reward of more tax cuts & more is spent on right-wing 'projects', like the military.

It's funny how this plays out really, when we consider that the Labour Party supports women who cannot prove they have been 'raped' when applying for child benefits.

Were half of those numbers true, the number of reported 'rapes' would double overnight, but they do not.

I think that this is a retrograde step for all women, in order to support the ones without responsibility & just how many of those women that voted for the measure were simply exercising their democratic feminist 'rights' at the expense of the unborn.

For the record, I am not in anyway 'religious', 'liberal' or 'conservative'.

[Rugoz]

Ireland is no more, Ireland is dead and buried and lost forever. It may aswell have been attacked with a hundred nuclear bombs. The day will come when the protection for the unborn will once again be reinstated into the constitution but it will be too late. My love for this country died with the innocence of our unborn precious babies.

Good one.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

Ah yes another liberal. Manically cackling and gibbering in the euphoric ignorance of a social lobotomy.

[Rich]

I know a woman who got pregnant through being raped. In my book anyone, who uses force, or supports the state in using force to stop women in her position getting abortions is a terrorist. I don't care whether they are Muslim, Catholic, Protestant or atheist. Regulars will know the value I place on terrorist life.

More generally even if the pregnancy comes about through a loving relationship, Its a simple choice between the rights of the woman and the rights of the foetus. I side with the woman. In our rich western societies we can give afford and its good to give children's rights. A child can be taken into care, fostered or adopted. Giving the child basic rights doesn't mean massively infringing the rights of an adult.

In my opinion most conservative opponents of abortion are misogynistic bigots,whose supposed care for every human life is utter, utter bullshit.

[blackjack21]

Well, you can't say that the West has left human sacrificial rites behind. We're morally equal to the head hunter and cannibal civilizations. We just do a better job of killing due to our technical advancements.

[AFAIK]

There are thousands of people alive today working hard laughing and making a life for themselves who would not be here without the protection of the 8th ammendment. Many of whom no doubt who have now voted to remove that protection from generations to come.

How can a child laugh if it has no head? Abortion due to fetal abnormality is illegal under the 8th.

Why don't you mention the murderers and rapists who wouldn't be here if they'd been aborted?

[Godstud]

Ah yes another mindless liberal. Manically cackling and gibbering in the euphoric ignorance of a social lobotomy.

Appeal to emotion. Melodrama and insults to any who don't agree with you.

Could you be any more SJW?

Good for Ireland. You don't need medieval pregnancy laws.

[layman]

Good that the Irish have joined the 21st century and that the uk doesn’t need to bail out its women anymore.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

How can a child laugh if it has no head? Abortion due to fetal abnormality is illegal under the 8th.

Why don't you mention the murderers and rapists who wouldn't be here if they'd been aborted?

Fatal fetal abnormality is a grievous term. Many babies who have been handed life sentences in the womb are alive and well to this day. Even so no matter how short a life is it is the individuals life to live. And it is such a minority of cases how can it justify the killing of healthy babies being carried by healthy mothers?

The rapists and murders? Are you saying the killing of babies is justified because for every hundred babies killed one or two may have been murders or rapists?

[anarchist23]

@jessupjonesjnr87
My wife was expecting our child and it died in her womb. She had no choice and had to abort our child. As I was, my wife was devastated. I personally think it was the right thing to do. What do you think?

Godstud wrote:

Good job, Ireland. Welcome to the 21st century. You are not a nation of mouth-breathers, after all.

When do you think Thailand will welcome in the 21st century in regards child prostitution?

[Godstud]

When do you think Thailand will welcome in the 21st century in regards child prostitution?

Are you joining the ranks of the ignorant, too? Sad. I thought you were smarter than that. I guess not.



Child prostitution is terribly illegal in Thailand, and some people disappear because they engage in it. That's all I'll say about it because this thread is not about Thailand, but Ireland's abortion law being over-turned.

[anarchist23]

Godstud wrote:

Good job, Ireland. Welcome to the 21st century. You are not a nation of mouth-breathers, after all.

You make sweeping statements and condemn a whole country.
This is not right, is it?

[Godstud]

Child prostitution is illegal in Thailand, and they have even asked for assistance from USA, Canada, Australia, and others to help combat it(mostly from foreigners coming to Thailand). It's terribly illegal to the point where people disappear when they engage in such things are caught(by police or otherwise).

Ireland's not a developing country, nor is it a country that should be decades behind others in its women's rights. My statement is right, and I am also of Irish heritage( I could get my citizenship tomorrow if I so chose), so I can say that.

[anarchist23]

@Godstud
You don't have to personally insult me.

Buddhists view abortion as an impediment to an individual’s eventual rebirth and disobeying the religious prohibition of taking a life. Because performing an abortion and having an abortion are both considered murderous acts, this act is looked down upon.
In Thailand, abortion is illegal, except for in the following 3 cases.

-To save the mother’s life
-To preserve the mother’s physical or mental health
-If the pregnancy is a result of an offense such as rape, incest, forced prostitution, or seduction of a girl under the age of 15.

A qualified medical practitioner must perform the abortion, but this service is not available at all hospitals and clinics. In order to get an abortion a legal procedure must be followed, in order to get the necessary paperwork for the practitioner.

These stringent restrictions on abortion are outlined in the Thai Penal Code of 1956, which dictates that any woman who performs her own abortion or allows another person to procure an abortion for her is subject to up to 3 years of imprisonment, and/or a fine not exceeding six thousand baht. The person procuring the abortion is subject to heavy fines and imprisonment. The fine dramatically increases if the abortion seriously injures the woman.

http://thailandmnch2016.blogs.wm.edu/ma ... /abortion/