The March For Choice on Saturday organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign was a momentous occasion. It was a tipping point, a demonstration that the support for free, safe and legal abortion extends far beyond the considered decision of the Citizens' Assembly.
The diversity of the crowd was noticeable, as families, children, men, women, trans people, people from all over Ireland, young and old, gathered in their thousands.
I was standing on Parnell Square behind thousands of people, and in front of thousands more, when a friend also marching texted from near the front of the demonstration saying they were just walking past the Custom House – a distance of over a kilometre.
Along the quays, a smattering of counter-protesters gathered, as they are perfectly entitled to. One had a sign that said something like “My mother nearly aborted me”, another held a sign saying “I regret my abortion”.
Ironically, all of these messages are about choice. Choosing to get pregnant, choosing to continue with a pregnancy, choosing a termination, choosing adoption – these are all choices.
Choosing to be personally pro-life or anti-abortion or however you want to term it, is also a pro-choice position. One can personally be against abortion, yet acknowledge that abortion is a necessary medical procedure for many people and therefore should be legal.
If anything, there is something particularly laudable about being able to park one’s personal views and consider the bigger picture and support what is necessary for other people and for society in general, even if you are personally opposed to it. I think a lot of people have that point of view, and it is a mature and respectful one.
Danger of polarisation
The march was the middle ground, but the debate is being coloured by exceptions. If this national conversation about reproductive rights is to be respectful and honest, we need to be cautious about those who base their argument in the extremities of the debate.
We often hear about the abortion debate being a “complex” one, but I think it is less complex and more nuanced. We are told that this debate is “polarising”, yet positing oneself at the extreme end of one of those poles is a tactic, and it is one that is being increasingly used by those who oppose women’s reproductive rights.
Already many who oppose a woman's right to choose are focusing on the highly emotive issues of rape. The forces amplifying this message seem only to care about rape when it is a point of conception. Rarely, if ever, do we hear the likes of Youth Defence, the Catholic Church, the Iona Institute and so on talk about the horror of rape in any other circumstance.
That’s because this isn’t really about rape or caring about rape victims; it is about finding a highly emotive access point to claim the moment of conception trumps every other right a woman has, regardless of how pregnancy occurs. I don’t think I need to go into how distasteful it is to use rape as a campaign tactic.
It is bizarre that those against women's reproductive rights try to distance themselves from their religious convictions
We know that fantasy and fabrication are hallmarks of some who oppose women’s reproductive rights. We see it in the fake numbers churned out about lives being “saved” by the Eighth Amendment. We see it in the fake posters erected before the march wrongly purporting to be from the Repeal the Eighth movement.
If we are to have an honest debate, these falsities have to be called out and challenged. Allowing them space is not “balance”. We know where fake news gets us.
It does not serve those opposing reproductive rights to talk about majorities and averages and the middle-ground. Pointing out the fact that the majority of abortions occur within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or highlighting the fact that the majority of women don’t regret their abortions, doesn’t possess the same emotional sensationalism as the exceptions.
Dogma vs ideology
If those who support a woman’s right to choose are being honest about where they’re coming from, so must the opposing side. When anti-choice campaigners act with Oscar-worthy shock when religious dogma is raised as an ideology behind opposing reproductive rights, we need to challenge this facade.
It is simply bizarre that those against women's reproductive rights try to distance themselves from their religious convictions in the debate when many of them are high-profile Catholic lobbyists, or indeed members of the clergy, and when their protesters are saying the rosary outside Leinster House. There is nothing wrong with saying the rosary outside Leinster House, but at least be honest about it.
These tactics should also make us question the strength of someone’s argument if it has to be based in or buffered by obfuscation. Look at the messaging of the so-called “pro-life” side now, and remember other referendum messages trading on fear, sensationalism and hypotheticals: that men would run out on their wives the minute divorce was legal, that gay marriage would see churches forced to marry gay couples and polygamy couldn’t be far away.
All of this was about stoking nonsensical fears. All of it was a fantasy. These are not real arguments, but when your real argument doesn’t actually hold water, you’ll do anything to muddy it.