People

March for Choice 2018: How a grassroots campaign changed Ireland

‘As I spoke about Repeal in the Phillipines I realised the global impact of our campaign’

Together for Yes campaigners outside their HQ during the abortion referendum campaign

Sarah Monaghan
Thu Sep 27 2018 - 16:00

Two months after Ireland voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment, which effectively banned abortion in this country, the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) was invited to a conference in the Philippines. It was hosted by the Philippine Safe Abortion Advocacy Network. In many ways, the Philippines is very similar to us in Ireland. They have almost identical abortion laws.

The consequences of these laws however are very different. In the Philippines, three women a day die from backstreet abortions. In Ireland, at least nine people travel daily to the UK for abortions while each day three people order abortion pills online.

Without access to safe abortions overseas or illegal abortions from the internet, we too would have had our own fatalities - more of them.

In my role with the Together for Yes campaign, I was interviewed by international press almost daily. But my focus was firmly in Ireland, surrounded by the people who I had battled alongside for my previous four and a half years of campaigning for repeal.

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It wasn’t until I first walked into that conference room in the Philippines to address a room of international advocates that I began to grasp the impact our work and the campaign was having across the world.

As I began to speak, women cried - women who had dedicated decades of their lives to the struggle for abortion rights. Ireland’s result had given hope that change was possible, a hope that hadn’t been seen for almost a generation. I know myself what it’s like to forget what hope feels like. Endless setbacks, stalling tactics, reversals on promises made, stalling tactics, along with the relentless expenditure, exposure and dedication of those who so vehemently opposed change.

But there I stood, on behalf of ARC, and opened with the words that elicited gasps, tears and cheering: “On May 25th, 66.4 per cent of voters in Ireland said Yes. Yes to Repealing the 8th. Yes to choice, and to supporting and respecting women.”

On the second day in the Philippines we visited a small community in the Barangay Batasan Hills. Following the screening of a documentary, groups of local women held conversations about pregnancy, childbirth and even abortion in an open community forum for the first time. It was incredibly powerful and brought me right back to Ireland. It brought me back to the referendum, but also to the years where ARC regional groups began to emerge nationwide, often sparked by one person willing to put themselves out there to be the instigator and do the vital work of organising on a local level. Meetings just like that are what changed Ireland, creating safe spaces for people to come together to share, to plan and to instigate change. For the most part, the people who changed Ireland were ordinary women, talking and listening to other ordinary women.

In those workshops I spoke about ARC’s roots and ethos, how from day one we have fought for free safe and legal abortion, and nothing less. In any movement it is important for there to be a strong uncompromising voice demanding change that leaves no-one behind. Many in Ireland had thought we weren’t being realistic enough, that even our name should be less direct.

Grassroots, intersectional, non-hierarchical, community- based campaigning has changed the face of our country and will continue to. Unless the poorest or most marginalised people can access abortion then ARC does not feel that our work is done.

We owe it to so many to get this right and we know the rest of the world will be watching.

Sarah Monaghan is the ARC co-convener. The Abortion Rights Campaign are holding the 7th Annual March for Choice on Saturday, September 29th at 2pm, starting at the Garden Remembrance, Dublin 1.