This is from Life News.
Excerpt:
A young Irish woman has spoken of the trauma she endured by travelling to the UK for an abortion.
Cork woman Tara (24) has told how she and her partner Steve felt they had no choice but to travel eight hours – almost 590 kilometres – to an abortion clinic in west London.
Tara, who does not give her surname, appears in a BBC Three documentary “Abortion: Ireland’s Guilty Secret?” to tell her story and why she’s pro-choice.
Under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, it is an offence to “intentionally destroy unborn human life” and those found guilty face a maximum jail term of 14 years.
Tara, who had an abortion because she wanted to travel and she wasn’t yet ready, tells reporter Alys Harte that the Government here is “ignoring” her right to choice.
“I’m really angry. I’m angry that they are ignoring women basically at the moment.”
“They shouldn’t have control over my uterus. I deserve that choice and it was taken away from me by my Government.”
“You deserve to be treated as a human and not as a criminal more than anything else,” she said.
The stress of travelling abroad to have an abortion was “not really pleasant”, Tara added.
“This could’ve been so simple. This could’ve been something I could’ve done two weeks ago basically when I found out.”
“It’s not really pleasant for anyone to have to go through the fact that you have to leave home and fly across the water and do something that is such a simple procedure. It definitely adds to the stress of it.”
Tara is one of around 4,000 Irish women who travel to the UK every year for abortions because it is illegal to do so in Ireland.
The country’s abortion laws will be the subject of a special report this year by Amnesty International.
Ireland is one of five countries chosen by Amnesty as “emblematic of global abuses of sexual and reproductive rights”.
The report aims to include testimonies from Irish women who have had abortions and explore issues such as the “prohibitive” high cost of travel, particularly for young women and socio-economically marginalised groups such as asylum seekers, undocumented migrants and Travellers.
The criminalisation of termination of pregnancy which results from rape, incest or sexual violence will also be reviewed as part of the My Body My Rights Campaign.
Tara claims that Ireland is behind its other Western counterparts on the abortion issue.
“The rest of the world can see that this is wrong but we’re in a western society and yet it hasn’t changed yet.”
I think the picture that goes with the story is really telling. Look at the man that she chose… hoop earrings, tattoos, piercings. He is her “partner” – not her husband. He is there for recreation, not to provide for her or lead her on moral/spiritual issues. They are having sex, but it’s doubtful that he has the discipline to provide for a family. Yet she is giving him all of herself anyway, because it’s fun to have recreational sex. Marriage isn’t fun though – marriage is boring. Marriage is work. Marriage is self-sacrifice. She is only 24! It’s too early to think of marriage. Now is the time for having fun, seeking thrills and traveling. It’s time for adventures! Not for prudence and caution. And if a child comes along who wants to stop her fun, then that child just has to die. And he is all for it!
I think this story goes very well with the mean post I wrote earlier expressing my frustration with how we as a society seem to have lost the ability to tell young, unmarried women “NO” when they want to act selfishly and/or unwisely. Look at the man she chose! He is not the kind of man who would tell her NO for anything she is doing wrong. He wants the sex, and he is willing to keep his mouth shut to get it. He’s not looking for a competent partner to support him in some enterprise. They are both more interested in recreational sex than they are in marriage and personal responsibility. I sincerely doubt that this man is financially prepared to be a protector and provider – he chose a woman who just killed his child! And she chose him because she could get his attention and acceptance, but without having to be judged or led by him in any way.
Why would she choose this man? A person who understands morality subjectively will try to surround herself with people who will always tell her that she is doing the right thing – no matter what she is doing. “Follow your heart”. She will also seek to silence anyone from telling her that what she is doing is wrong. She will also vote for laws that will punish people who say in public that what she is doing is wrong. With respect to abortion, that means no clinic protesters, no graphic images from protesters, no mandatory ultrasounds, no public expressions of Christianity. Anything that makes her feel that a majority of people are opposed to her has to be tuned out or silenced by force of government. The most important question that a subjective-morality person asks is “what will people think of me if I do this?” And also “I want to do this, how can I make more people agree with me?”
If we want women to stop making poor decisions with their lives, then we have to speak up and be convincing on issues like abortion, and to teach them to be careful about surrounding themselves with people who are using them, and who will agree with any crazy thing they want to do in order to keep using them.
One last point about this woman. When I look at her picture, I think about her future. I think about whether the man she has chosen is wasting her youth, and whether she understands that men like that do not stick around when a woman gets older. In order to get a man to commit to a woman past the time where she is at her peak of physical attraction, she has to do two things. First, she has to be developing her own skills and accomplishments. Second, she has to choose a man who s trying to achieve something that requires those skills and accomplishments. That’s what causes a man to fall in love and remain devoted to one woman into old age. But this woman is not looking to improve her skills and to get achievements that a good man would find valuable. Instead, she is choosing the easy road. Giving her physical beauty to the wrong man, in order to have fun and thrills today – and there’s no plan for tomorrow.
And as she ages, she will probably find herself without a man who is dedicated to providing for her, and will instead vote for government to take that role in her life. That means higher taxes, more government spending and borrowing, more debt for the next generation, and fewer young men who can afford to marry and have kids. That’s why we need to tell the women of today NO when they want to behave selfishly, and be guided by their emotions.
