TwoWomenTravel Live-Tweet Their Abortion Trip To Irish Prime Minister (TWEETS, VIDEO)

By
Kay Smythe
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An Irish woman and her friend formed a Twitter account, @TwoWomenTravel, specifically to live-tweet the Irish Prime Minister Edna Kenny about a trip to obtain a legal abortion.

Thousands of women travel from Ireland to England and Wales to get an abortion every year as the procedure is still illegal in their country. In 2015, these figures were estimated at 3,000.

In this case, the woman receiving the abortion and a friend live-tweeted the Irish PM to stress the time commitment, financial burden, and stress the trip had on both her and her friend.

Of the story, the two women wrote:

“We wanted to share the very ordinariness of the situation — we wanted to show it for what it is… We had to travel because our government insists that we pretend this isn’t happening.”

 

Not surprisingly, PM Kenny apparently deleted each of the women’s tweets, as they do not appear in either of the PM’s timelines.

Ireland Is Living In The Dark Ages Of Women’s Rights

Since 1967, around 165,000 women have made this very same trip, and just this year, 3,000 have from Northern Ireland alone. The deeply Catholic country still only allows abortions if a woman’s life is at risk. Many doctors refuse to go through with the procedure for fear of breaking the law.

Even more revoltingly, if a woman falls pregnant after being raped, including by a family member, she is explicitly banned from having an abortion. Women carrying a fetus with life-threatening abnormalities (likely to die in the womb) are also banned from receiving the medical attention they require.

The two women documented their entire trip, which could see them arrested and charged against the strict “right to life” laws passed under the eighth amendment, using the hashtag #Repealthe8th.

Their voyage comes two months after the United Nations Human Rights Committee demanded Ireland reform its abortion laws, deeming them “cruel and inhumane” and in violation of women’s human rights.

 

Abortion In America

It is still legal in 31 states for rapists to sue for custody of children they father.

In 2013, a Republican state representative from New Mexico attempted to pass a bill that classified abortions in the case of rape ‘tampering with evidence’.

In 2009, a man named Jaime Melendez raped a 14-year-old teen who subsequently fell pregnant. He plead guilty, was convicted, and was forced the pay child support. Then, he demanded custody rights. He manipulated his victim into choosing between the safety of her child, or her ability to support her child. He did this legally.

In a similarly horrendous case, a man named Ariel Castro kidnapped and held women against their will in his home. He fathered a child with one of his victims. With almost 1,000 counts of rape held against him, he still had the legal right to petition the judge to grant him visitation rights.

Featured Image: Screenshot Via Independent Video.

Kay Smythe
http://www.kaysmythe.com
Kay Smythe is a freelance writer, social geographer, and senior writer at Anthony Gilardi's HIPPO LIFE. She was first published by Guardian Travel in the mid-2000s, which earned her the editorship at her college newspaper in 2010. From there, Smythe was opinion and news editor with The Tab, whilst maintaining a blog with Huffington Post. Her works featured interviews with Oscar and Emmy nominated actors. In early 2016, Smythe was awarded an O1 VISA. She lives and works in Venice, California, and loves it.

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