Two pieces well worth reading in the Irish Times. Both make reference to the #RepealThe8th campaign. Both involve the “controversy” surrounding comments made by Sydney Rose Brianna Parkins.
The first, by Parkins herself, not only puts her remarks into context but also gives us a wider view of the overall event itself from the point of view of the contestants.
I stand by the festival, but I believe it’s time for it to change. If it doesn’t accept that women who enter will want to have political opinions then it risks being on the wrong side of history.
The second, by Pro-Life campaigner and regular IT columnist Breda O’Brien, does pretty much what every such article does…misdrect using straw people and hypothetical scenarios.
If she had called for the retention of the Eighth Amendment, would media people be queuing up to congratulate her, and to offer her a drink?
Breda DOES know that her regular columns in a national newspaper make her a “media person”, right?
She goes on…
And please don’t say Brianna Parkins just called for a vote. No-one who supports the equal right to life of the unborn child and the mother would call for a vote on the amendment that protects that right.
Nobody who supports democracy would object to the calling of a vote.
First Person Plural 