Alliance For Choice

Monday June 23, 2003 11:46

by pat c

Next Alliance For Choice meeting (open to all) Tue July 1 in the Teachers Club, Parnell Sq. 7.30 - 9.30.

Dear Friends,

the AfC steering group met on June 10. Next meeting (open to all) Tue July 1 in the Teachers Club, Parnell Sq. 7.30 - 9.30.

The main issues discussed on June 10 were the WoW trip to Poland; and what the AfC might do in September.

Re: the WoW - Poland project.

We agreed to draft a press statement supporting WoW's efforts to increase the availability of abortion. You will have already read their statement, and we have had nothing else from WoW since then. We decided to amend / release it according to coverage of the Poland trip in the Irish media. So far coverage has been nil - as far as I have seen. If anybody has seen mention of the Poland trip, please let me know.

Re: a Sept event - 20th anniversary of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution.

We discussed possibille activities, mostly in relation to the 1995 Information Act - which is the basis on which the Yellow Pages has withdrawn ads for Marie Stopes from the 1994 edition. While restricted access to abortion information has a variety or reasons (attitudes of GPs, weak pro-choice networks in rural areas, etc.), the 1995 Act is an issue on which we can put demands upon the government / opposition. We discussed possibilities of publicly breaching the Act by giving out information, but we need to discuss this further. The Cork group are planning a day of pro-choice films.

We also discussed
making a pro-choice input into the counter-summit events at the World Economic Forum conference in Dublin on Oct 21 / 22 / 23; setting up a website, email address;
and a second mobile phone number with details on how to get WoW information on Dutch clinics, etc.

The next meeting of the steering group is Tue. July 1 This meeting is open to everybody, so please come along.

The main areas of discussion will be
the proposed Sept events - what they should be and the beginning of organising them;
possible inputs into the WEF events.

There is much to be done if a Sept. event is to be organised - all contributions are needed - so please come if you can.

In solidarity
Brendan