Readers' Blog: I live in UK, so vote ‘yes’ for me and for all women
I am writing this letter on my journey back to London, where I now live, after a weekend in Ireland, where I grew up.
Looking at the posters of the various campaigning groups seeking to retain the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution, I was struck by the messages about not bringing abortion “over here” and the implicit anti-English sentiment.
We all know that Irish women are already having abortions, whether legally, on covert journeys to England, or illegally, in the secrecy of their bedrooms in Ireland.
The Irish electorate explicitly endorsed a reliance on the English healthcare system as an “Irish solution to an Irish problem”, through their support in 1992 for the 13th and 14th Amendments, guaranteeing the right to travel and the right to information about how to access an abortion in another country.
It is time to stop the hypocrisy of how Irish women are treated under Irish law.
I am an Irish woman who can no longer vote in Ireland.
I hope Irish voters will be my ‘Yes’ on May 25 and vote to remove the Eighth Amendment.
