Ruth Coppinger speaks at pro-choic rally at the Dail

The following is the text of a leaflet distributed by the Socialist Party at a recent protest demanding legislation on the X case.

The Draft Bill legislating for X case is designed to placate reactionary elements of Fine Gael and seeks to criminalise and punish women in crisis pregnancies. The pro-choice movement must mobilise to exert maximum pressure on the government to remove the worst provisions in the draft and maintain the fight for a referendum to repeal eighth amendment.

Unsurprisingly, the Bill proposed by Socialist Party / United Left Alliance TD, Clare Daly to legislate for the X Case, was overwhelming defeated in the Dail. The establishment fail yet again; women suffer, and working class and economically deprived women who can’t or find it difficult to muster the money to travel to access a termination, and migrant women and women trapped in abusive relationships who have restrictions on their travel, suffer most acutely.

At a ROSA meeting in October, Igor Iasine as guest speaker spoke about his first hand experience of LGBT repression in Russia, and the CWI’s campaign against this. Igor is active in Moscow, both in the LGBT movement, and in the Socialist Party’s sister organisation, the Russian section of the CWI. In this year, he has been physically attacked twice because of his activities.