Since moving to the beautiful Emerald Isle, many things have become clear to me. Irish people are overwhelmingly friendly and helpful. They will point you in the right direction where they can, wish you luck and give out to you for moving to Ireland from sunny Australia (Note: I am writing this on my deck that is currently doused in summer sun). They will all ask you during the course of a day whether you can sing. If you say yes, a song will be demanded of you. You can get an excellent bottle of red wine for 7 Euros and they have a range of gluten free food that a girl like me could only have dreamt of. It’s no secret they love a drink, they love a dance and Irish Pub trad music sessions are as quintessentially Irish as any tourist or traveller could ever imagine or hope for.
All positive things.

To be honest, I am very much smitten with my new home. I’m even hearing certain idioms pop out of my mouth unannounced – I’ve said “That’ll be grand” more in the last month than in my whole life. And whilst all of these things are whimsical and lovely and certainly shouldn’t go unnoticed, it is also clear that the Irish are a political people. Telling you that Ireland is ‘great craic’ and that the music here is rife, as are the stories of Leprechauns and Faeries, shouldn’t come as a surprise to most. But telling you that today the country has a vote to change the Referendum over the issue of Abortion might. That today, the country that voted in favour of Gay Marriage first and was applauded for its ‘forwardness’, is at the tolling booths arguing over the right for women to have determination over their own sexual reproduction.

I didn’t initially plan on making any comments on this. I can’t vote here. My opinion is very strongly set in one way and if you’ve spent any time in Ireland over the last few months, you will know that the pamphleting and protesting has been unavoidable. But in reality, I figured enough people had opinions floating out there without mine being added to the mix.

I take strong issue to certain behaviours of one side of the vote. I am horrified at the propaganda and misinformation that has been allowed to be given to the public and I am worried about the impact that will have on the less educated members of the Irish public who may believe these posters to be true through no fault of their own.

To say I have a strong view here is an understatement and to say that I have had multiple, almost daily, conversations over the last month with people about it would be the truth. But to say it isn’t a complicated issue would also be remiss of me.

But still I wasn’t going to comment. Not my country, not my Constitution. But then last night on my way home, the day before the vote, the city was alive with people discussing it, handing out pamphlets, badges and having conversations. And the need to comment struck me.

For those of you who may not be across the issue, in a nutshell it is as follows. In 1983, a 67% vote by the Irish people (a Catholic nation) made abortion illegal within Ireland except within the most extreme cases. In saying that, I am as yet unconvinced that any situation would be considered extreme enough for it to be allowed. When I say it is illegal, I mean properly illegal.

Not a slap on the wrist illegal.

Jail-time illegal.

Up to 14 years imprisonment illegal.

Today, the vote is to repeal this section of the Constitution – to repeal the 8th Amendment to allow abortion within Ireland. To allow women to have abortions under medical advice, with proper counseling and support, within the confines of their own country.

Currently women are forced to travel over to the United Kingdom for this right. The term “she’s had to go to England” is now part of Irish vernacular.

At the crux of this legal position, women’s rights and an unborn child’s rights are the same. Equal. Meaning not only have women had to fight for equal rights to men for hundreds of years, now they are having to fight for their own rights against something or someone that doesn’t even exist and couldn’t exist alone outside of the womb yet. AGAIN, women aren’t being trusted with their bodies, their opinions or their lives. Again, people are arguing that abortions will just become rife through society should women be allowed to legally abort a baby at an appropriate time of a pregnancy. Looking at studies of other countries that have brought in legal abortion, such as Switzerland, we simply know this not to be true. In fact, studies have shown that women in Ireland still undergo more abortions each year than many countries who have legal abortion.

Moreso than this, is the horrifying reality that should you, as a woman, be raped and fall pregnant, there are no options for you within Ireland. Should you fall pregnant to a baby that the medical profession knows will live for no longer than a few breaths, you have no recourse but to carry that baby to full term. Similarly, should you be in a position of a birth that becomes medically complicated, saving your life over that of the fetus is legally complicated for the medical profession.

From my time in the the field of Law, it is commonly understood that the laws we hold in our society are designed to protect and provide for all members of society. May I repeat, all members of society.

So the 14 year old girl in country Ireland who has been raped by an older man must now have the baby she did not choose or she somehow has to find the funds to fly herself over to England to have an expensive medical procedure without any of the familiarities of her life? And that is her being ‘protected’ by the Irish constitution? One that was so passionately fought for. A constitution for a free state that people died for.

Look, abortion is never ideal. I think we can all agree on that. Unwanted pregnancies are never ideal. Abortion should never be taken lightly. But a pregnancy should also never be forced onto someone who cannot undertake the responsibility of a new life.

However in truth, none of that is my point today. Today I wanted to say how heartened I was by my new home. Last night as I rode through the city, I watched groups of people, young and old gathering with their ‘Repeal’ jumpers on and their badges ready to hand out. I saw young girls who would otherwise be apathetic to politics, standing with firm opinions outside government buildings with flyers. But most heartwarmingly, I saw young men, old men, fathers and brothers out on the streets having conversations about voting Yes today to repeal the 8th Amendment.

Whether I am a feminist by the terminology is of no interest or importance to me. Often I have heard people say that men shouldn’t have an opinion on issues such as this but as fathers and potential fathers, I don’t believe it would be right to strip them of a voice here. But I do know that change most effectively starts at home. It starts with men standing up for women. Not standing up for what they believe women should do. But for women to have the right to a voice. The right to their own bodies. The right to self-determination that most men have had for their entire lives, if not also the lives of their fathers and grandfathers.

Last night, I felt grateful for the men willing to be out on the streets campaigning for their sisters’ and mothers’ and daughters’ rights. For their neighbours’ rights. Their lecturers’ rights and their nurses’ rights and the rights of their friends. It is a wonderful world, albeit one that should always have made sense, where women have the right to have a single set of rights in their own body and to have dominion over those rights. And last night, I was proud of the passion for freedom and the love of womankind that was shown.

At the end of the day, I hope Ireland votes with how it feels. Truly. Whatever the outcome. I hope people get out there and have their say. But I do sincerely hope that women in this country feel empowered by the process they have just undertaken and I hope the men who I saw in the streets last night partitioning for the Yes vote go home to houses tonight where they feel appreciated for doing what’s right in standing up for the rights of women.

It is easy to be apathetic. It is easy to not want to make yourself a target when people are telling you “no uterus, no opinion”. And it is hard, even for myself, to understand how much of a man’s opinion on this topic I am able to swallow.

But what I will stand up and applaud is men who love women fiercely enough to defend their rights. Because as someone who is, for all intents and purposes, a feminist, I adore men. Good men. Strong men. Brave men. Men who honour and adore and fight for the women they love and live with and admire. And in the words of my very favourite Anais Nin, “I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman”. I hope Ireland now has the courage to treat women like women, because women are wildly and outrageously wonderful.