Alison O'Connor: Happily, the Government is rethinking this daft decision to erase women

You cannot disappear the word ‘woman’ to accommodate what must be a handful of trans men who give birth each year

Roderic O’Gorman says bizarre motivations were ascribed to the Government. He might consider how bizarre it would be to remove the word 'woman' from maternity legislation. File picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

THERE is some good news for the Irish chapter of womankind this week. The Government is reviewing the utterly daft decision to remove the word woman from the legislation surrounding women giving birth in Ireland.

The fact this has been officially contemplated in the first place never gets any less weird. Before the Dáil broke up for the summer, proposed amendments to the Maternity Protection Act 1994 were to have been made involving the replacement of “woman” with “person”.