Opinion

Allison Morris: Pace of social change in Republic stands in stark contrast to north

Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar brief the media on the government's plans for a referendum on Ireland's abortion laws, following a specially convened cabinet meeting at Government Buildings in Dublin on Monday. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire
Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar brief the media on the government's plans for a referendum on Ireland's abortion laws, following a specially convened cabinet meeting at Government Buildings in D Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar brief the media on the government's plans for a referendum on Ireland's abortion laws, following a specially convened cabinet meeting at Government Buildings in Dublin on Monday. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire

The speed at which social change has taken place in the south has been quite remarkable.

Compare that to the non-governance in this part of the island, a place where it is a considered a political concession to grant equality to couples of the same sex and give women autonomy over her own bodies and the difference is stark.

Rights taken for granted elsewhere are considered bargaining chips in Northern Ireland in 2018.

While we have been without devolution for a year I remain sceptical that even with a functioning executive we would have been any further on, in the ten years we did have government these issues of basic equality were not resolved.

Sinn Féin have only recently updated their views on abortion, members having previously dodged the question.

With a referendum on the Eighth Amendment expected to take place in the Republic in late May, it is welcome that the party now have an all-Ireland policy on reproductive rights and recently replaced president Gerry Adams said just last year he considered abortion a woman's choice.

Change in the north on these social issues, blocked by the DUP before the collapse of the assembly, means no equal marriage and women in crisis pregnancy still having to make a journey to the UK, albeit now without the financial burden, thanks to MP Stella Creasy.

But while change in Northern Ireland remains deadlocked in political crisis, it is with an eye across the border that we see how entrenched attitudes can shift.

Leo Varadkar this week totally transformed the nature of the repeal campaign when he publicly said he would be backing change to the Irish constitution to allow abortion in certain circumstances.

The taoiseach quite rightly pointed out just how outdated the current legislation is.

"When it was last asked I was four-years-old. Nobody under 52 has had a vote on this issue. I think it's appropriate that people should be allowed to have this vote", he said this week.

To fully appreciate how far the country has come you have to go back to Mr Varadkar's childhood, and further back again to the Ireland of our mothers and grandmothers.

A time when young girls who fell pregnant were locked away behind high walls and treated as unpaid slaves in Magdalene laundries.

Generations of social conditioning by Church and state to blame and shame women as immoral was easier than accepting joint responsibility or recognising sexual violence in a patriarchal society where such things were kept hidden.

However, a new generation of Irish women, brave and fearless, have refused to be dictated to by a Church that punished and vilified mothers and grandmothers.

When 15-year-old Ann Lovett was found frozen and dying with her new-born baby son who had already perished, at a grotto in Granard, Co Longford, the nation was rightly appalled.

What shame causes a teenage girl to give birth alone in the dead of winter?

Hundreds of Irish women wrote letters to RTE's Gay Byrne telling stories of their own traumatic experiences.

Despite the medieval sound of the tragedy this was the Ireland of 1984.

The letters told of babies ripped from their young mother's arms never to be spoken of again.

Told by parish priests their shame would follow them forever.

A few decades before and there were mothers and babies found buried in mass graves in the grounds of the homes run by religious orders who punished them for their 'sin'.

In the same year Ann Lovett died the Bishop of Kerry, Dr Kevin McNamara, issued a public statement warning that making contraceptives freely available to unmarried people would produce seriously harmful consequences. It would, he wrote, maintain “the moral corruption of youth”.

Those who use religion to guilt abused and traumatised teenagers into giving birth cared little for them or their babies after they'd been born.

The people of Ireland have a huge decision on their hands, but the intervention from senior politicians shows the debate is turning.

No woman or girl ever makes such a decision lightly and those in crisis pregnancy should be supported in whatever they feel is best for them.

But abortions will always happen regardless and it's time the people of Ireland looked after their own citizens in a compassionate and caring way.

While social change remains locked down in this part of the island the progressive and expedited nature of change in the south has been quite remarkable to observe.