I’ve seen a good few comments recently about how it’s great that we can talk more openly about our birthing experiences, but how we need to make sure to also emphasise that it isn’t always like this, that some people give birth in the dreamiest of ways and ‘bounce back’ in no time. That’s true of course, and I get why the caveat is so often added – and yet I’m uncomfortable...
Category - Reproductive Justice
Bits of Me is my new podcast about women’s bodies, all the things we should know about them, and all the stories behind them. We’ll be talking about bulging bits, hormonal hell-rides, collapsed vaginas, painful sex, birthing choices, shame, and everything in between. The podcast is available on all major platforms, including Spotify, Stitcher, iTunes and Apple Podcasts. If you like the...
I started International Women’s Day by having a smear test. I guess in some twisted, far-fetched way, it is a form of self-care, after all. In many ways, today was far from an ideal day for me to do this thing – not because it’s International Women’s Day, but because it’s my monthly deadline in work, a day I when I’m responsible for quality checking in excess of 120 pages of...
The question was posed many times in the past few months: What will we do with all this time when we repeal? Rest, was one of the obvious answers from many: sleep for a week, rest for a month, take a year of just living. These were women who had spent every free moment talking and thinking about the campaign; mothers with ulcers and babies who didn’t sleep, who in spite of it all drove around...
We’ve heard it all before: a man brutally murders a woman, and everyone’s in shock. Perhaps after the debate that followed the reporting of the murder of Clodagh Hawe and her three sons by her husband a couple of years ago, journalists and editors are thinking twice, even thrice before publishing praise of Mark Hennessy, the man now found to have strangled the young Jastine Valdez to death in...
I want to talk to you about your fears. I know you’re torn. I know you agree that there are exceptional circumstances that make abortion acceptable – circumstances where you’re willing to concede, despite the fact that your gut tells you it’s wrong. I know that you feel that abortion should be a last resort, and you fear that the government’s proposed legislation fails to acknowledge...
She’s a lovely woman. She often stops by to chat when she’s on her way somewhere and my two sons are playing in the front garden. She tells me they’re adorable, such a gift. And she’s right – they are a gift. She means it in a slightly different way to how I see it, of course; she thinks of them as gifts from God. But we agree that they’re a blessing, if in a non-religious sense for...
“Happiness is within,” they say. Within you, within that cup of herbal tea and a gratitude journal and deep, deep breaths. You should try yoga. We’ll all have our 15 minutes of fame – if we just find that strength within. We’ll all be somebody, more than just selfless mothers – we’ll make our lives into works of art, copyrighted, patented, and with no one to thank but ourselves. One...
On January 2nd, the Irish Times reported that Irish women have been advised to start having babies younger. The contextual hypocrisy aside (think housing crisis, sky-high childcare costs, poorly paid graduate jobs – the list goes on), one aspect of the story jumped out: Dr. Fishel, of a Dublin IVF fertility clinic, said that Down Syndrome occurs in one of 700 pregnancies in women aged 32, while...
It’s a funny one, the word ‘choice’. I spend so much of my time promoting it, explaining it, demanding it – yet whenever I stop to really think about it, I realise that it’s a word I’d much prefer not to have to embrace. For as long as laissez-faire or economic liberalism has existed, ‘choice’ has been one of its most important buzzwords, second only to ‘freedom’. In fact, the...