Repeal the 8th amendment rpt

At the CWU Youth Committee AGM, which took place on 26th February 2015 in CWU Head Office, a motion of affiliation of the Youth Committee to the Trade Union Campaign to Repeal the 8th Amendment was unanimously passed.

The Trade Union Campaign to Repeal the 8th Amendment, launched in September 2014, is self-described as “a group for organising trade union activists and members from all trade unions in the fight to repeal the 8th”. The 8th Amendment, inserted in 1983, effectively served to equate the life of a woman to the life of a foetus. The enshrining of restrictions to abortion care within our constitution has had massive implications for women’s rights in Ireland. As a result, progressive legislation regarding abortion in Ireland has been hampered, or indeed, made impossible. We need only look to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act of 2013 which, in effect, rendered the maximum punishment for women accessing abortion care in Ireland as 14 years’ imprisonment, longer than the national average sentence for rape. The starkest manifestation of the unworkable and inhumane nature of the legislation in its current constitutional context was represented by the recent Miss Y case in the summer of 2014, whereby a migrant seeking an abortion in Ireland on the basis of suicidality was denied access and forced to undergo a C-section. In addition, the recent Fatal Foetal Abnormalities Bill, put forward this February by TD Clare Daly, failed to pass on the basis of concern from the major political parties regarding its constitutionality. Whether this is the case or not, it remains clear that the 8th Amendment currently stands enormously in the way of progress for women in Ireland.

In terms of the trade union movement in Ireland, the repeal of the 8th amendment is something that needs to be supported; both in terms of contributing to the protection and promotion of basic human rights and more specifically in terms of the rights of women as workers. Women in all European countries (with the exception of Malta, Poland and the Vatican) are afforded the right to choose. As workers, women living in Ireland seeking abortion care are forced to travel overseas, often necessitating unplanned leave and massive financial burden. Irish women and Irish workers should be, without question, afforded the same rights as their European counterparts.

It is for this reason that it is so vital that the trade union movement in Ireland stands behind this campaign; a campaign for human rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, reproductive justice and equality!