?
WHY ABORTION IS A QUEER ISSUE
Abortion Care and the LGBT+ Community
What can we do? Stay informed! With the publication of the results of the abortion Review, there is a new opportunity to engage with abortion politics and to keep fighting for better abortion care. Just because Repeal was won 5 years ago, does not mean that we do not need to work on abortion politics anymore. The Review identifies clear areas for improvement within the abortion law and provision, and we need to make sure that the government takes action on this. But we also need to focus on connections, and I think this is where the wonderful power of the LGBT+ community comes in. The solidarity and support that we offer each other, needs to extend and include continued work on abortion care. Queer people came together for Repeal and have been essential in the movement to bring in abortion rights, now we need to keep working on making sure abortion is truly available for anyone who needs it. Resources If you or someone you know needs an abortion, you can phone your GP, or if you prefer, the HSE’s MyOptions service will help you find your nearest abortion provider. Phone 1800 828 010 . Alliance for Choice has put together information on accessing abortion services in Northern Ireland - Need an abortion . LMC Support provides information, resources, and peer support to people who have received a diagnosis of a severe or fatal anomaly during pregnancy. Abortion Support Network helps people who need to travel to access safe abortions by providing information on clinics, travel and accommodation, and financial assistance to help with costs for those who need it. Supporting Abortions for Everyone (SAFE) supports abortions for everyone by funding activists who enable abortions, building pathways between abortions and people who want abortions, collecting and sharing knowledge and best practices, and finding and inspiring champions to advocate for abortion access across Europe. Women on Web provides information on and access to abortion medication. Are you queer and have you had experience with abortion care in Ireland, and would you like to be part of activist-academic work on reproduction? Feel free to get in touch with me at cwaltz@ucc.ie . I would love to hear from you!
We know that the barriers to abortion care are exacerbated for people who already experience restricted accessibility to healthcare, such as LGBT+ people. Many of us have experienced ourselves what research has also shown: people of marginalised gender identities are less likely to seek care than cisgender people are 1 , and that often anyone other than ciswomen are excluded in the context of sexual and reproductive health 2 . Although the Abortion Rights Campaign and the National Women’s Council have conducted research into service users’ experiences with abortion care that also includes LGBT+ experiences, there is little to no in-depth, qualitative research available on particular queer experiences with abortion. However, it is clear from the abortion legislation that queer people, bodies, and reproduction are not considered legitimate subjects for care. The fact that generally only ‘women’ are referred to in the abortion law is part of the exclusion and marginalisation of queer people from reproductive healthcare. Abortion as a Queer Issue Discussions, laws, and policies on abortion care often reinforce and maintain heteronormative understandings of gender, sexuality, and family. Not only do queer people need access to abortion care because different (gender) queer people might have the capacity to become pregnant, but abortion can also be seen as part of a larger queer politics. It is about the freedom, autonomy, and possibility to choose whether to have children in the first place, and under which circumstances we might (not) want to raise families. This is also at stake for queer parents. State policies of abortion care essentialise and normalise heteronormative reproduction and normative understandings of gender and sexuality. This does more than just marginalise queer people, it affects anyone who does not fit into heteronormativity. Moreover, we know that the same groups that are anti-abortion and want to further restrict access to abortion care, are often the same groups who engage in other oppressive politics against LGBT+ people. Abortion is about much more than “just” abortion. It is about the ability to live your life in the way that you choose, in safety and dignity.
Current State of Abortion Care The law itself has multiple barriers to abortion care built into it. One of the barriers is the mandatory 3-day waiting period for anyone accessing abortion care, which serves no medical purpose. There is also a strict limit to care under 12 weeks’ gestation. Even when you might be waiting for medical test results - or for the 3-day waiting period - as soon as you are 12 weeks pregnant, you will not be allowed to continue to access abortion care if there is no indication of a risk to your life or health, or a fatal foetal anomaly. Abortion care provision is also still criminalised, which means that any medical specialist who acts outside of the narrow parameters of the law could still be prosecuted and sentenced to prison. Apart from the way the law is designed, the implementation of provision is also lacking. The geographical distribution of hospitals and general practitioners providing abortions is patchy, with many rural areas without close-by providers. By calling on conscientious objection, which is not properly organised or managed, it remains easy for medical specialists to refuse to provide care and to obstruct further referral. While early medical abortion care in community provision is relatively accessible, these significant legal and practical barriers make widespread and equal abortion care access and provision impossible.
By Charlotte Waltz Repeal marked a transformative moment for reproductive rights in Ireland. Abortion care has been implemented and is available
on request up to 12 weeks’ pregnancy, in later cases when the pregnant person’s health or life is at risk, or in case of a fatal foetal diagnosis. Despite the legalisation of abortion, there are a number of ongoing issues with the provision and accessibility of abortion care. As the recently published Review of the abortion law has made clear, the fight for accessible abortion care is not over yet. For the past three years, I have conducted PhD research on abortion governance in Ireland. I share some of the findings of my research, and why abortion is a queer issue.
The fact that generally only ‘women’ are referred to in the abortion law is part of the exclusion and marginalisation of queer people from reproductive healthcare.
1 See Howell and Maguire’s 2019 article ‘Seeking help when transgender: Exploring the difference in mental and physical health seeking behaviors between transgender and cisgender individuals in Ireland’. 2 Moseson et al. (2020) have done US-based research on this published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
www.corkpride.com
#CorkPride2023
56
57
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker