"Witches or women": Prominent Irish women join together for Repeal the Eighth short film

A group of prominent Irish women from all walks of life have appeared in a powerful short film to call for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment.

Directed by IFTA award-winner Dave Tynan, the video features thirty Irish women including Senator Lynn Ruane, Love/Hate’s Aoibhinn McGinnity and Ripper Street’s Charlene McKenna reciting a poem called ’We Face This Land’ written by author Sarah Maria Griffin.

It was made in conjunction with the Repeal Project, who are behind the black and white jumpers.

The video has been widely shared since its release last night, with over 100,000 views and 3,000 shares on Facebook alone.

The poem in full:

"Centuries ago women accused of witchcraft faced,

Amongst other ordeals, trial by water

Tied to a chair or run under a boat

If she survives the drowning and floats she’s a witch.

If she dies, she’s a woman

We are not witches but if the church and state insist

Then let us be the descendants of all the witches they could not drown

This heirloom of trauma, this curse

This agony of water in order to hold agency over our bodies

Not all of us have survived, the waves do not part

There are no miracles here

When a stethoscope is a crucifix on your belly

How do you have any choice but the water

And fair medical treatment on other shores

A body is a body is a body is a body is a body is a body is a body

Not a house. Not a city. Not a vessel, not a country

The laws of the church have no place on your flesh

A veterinarian will abort a calf if a cow is falling ill.

How is it that livestock is worth more to this land than us?

Eleven women every day leave Ireland seeking an abortion abroad.

We ask for the land over the water. Home over trial. Choice over none.

For our foremothers, for ourselves, the generations yet to come

Witches or women, these are our bodies which shall not be given up."

H/T: breakingnews.ie