Stop all this rampant casual pill-popping wanton humping, for God's sake...
In yesterday’s Irish Independent rambo-catholic David Quinn sought to portray himself as a martyr for free speech. Whilst he demonised women for seeking the morning after pill in Boots (preferring restraint or chastity!) Quinn also whined to high heaven about being the victim of repressive feminazis on Twitter. Poor Dave! Apparently some had the cheek to define his views on women’s control over their own bodies as ‘medieval’. He also claimed he’d been insulted and called a cunt. He scrambled about in the dark for 40 dazed seconds wondering ‘how we ever got to a point where there’s even a demand for a product like this’. The word demand here of course meaning a desire for sex outside of a committed relationship, such as a deluxe married one. There are no offers of stats accompanying this ancillary demand. Rather, he seems to have taken the product name: ‘Morning After Pill’ to heart, like Head & Shoulders shampoo could mean decapitation to a psycho. Availability of such a product will simply encourage the easily swayed fairer sex to indulge in quick-fix hot rampant park-n-ride humping at a moment’s notice.
The type of woman Dave sees wanting this pill: ‘Young, single women who were out on the tear over the weekend.’ Why don’t you just call them ‘slags’ and be done with it, someone snapped back on Twitter. Women scrambling for this €45 ‘abortifacient’ offering − in David’s comely eyes a kind of preemptive breakfast muffin termination − doesn’t seem to include 30 or 40-something women like me dealing with a burst condom scenario. Sorry Dave, but I do tend to like it a bit frantic and it’s happened twice, or a married woman worried her ordinary pill may not work after a bout of sickness/diarrhoea. And a myriad of other situations where emergency contraception is needed, including in cases of sexual assault. Imagine in the dark old days if such a service was available to women, especially young women who fell pregnant through incest, rape and abuse. And don’t say those scenarios were rare! If there was a morning after pill in 1983, for instance, maybe the young woman who died giving birth in that dreadful desolate place at Granard might never have been put in such a lethal position.
Instead, P for Pill in the Quinn context seems to spell PROMISCUITY to a congregation of tunnel visioners. He refers to pro-contraception folk as ‘moralising anti-moralisers’. It’s an inversion of the truth to portray those on the liberal side of the sexuality debate as the newfound ‘old right’. Such a dishonest move turns all logic and meaning on its head. ‘The problem with your thesis is that you want to legislate for an aspirational society that doesn’t, and may never, exist,’ another twitterer responded. Nor does he mention anywhere in his quickie-porridge-oats analysis, health concerns or issues surrounding the actual taking of the morning after pill. Even that would be a type of progress or perceptibility. He prefers to finger-wag at the female sexual gambol, citing that ‘demand can only be high where there is a high level of self-defeating, self-destructive behaviour’.
I seem to recall similar fears about the potential for mass-hysteria triggered divorces back in 1997 too. And God forbid if we should ever have abortion available in Ireland, we’ll be dashing out to get preggers just for the Nilfisk novelty of it all. While I’m all for the I Believe In Talking Snakes lobby having their divine say, it’s worth remembering that concrete church & state roadblocks obstructing liberalism began to crumble back in the late-1980s, when contraception became more freely available here in all its ambrosial forms. So the marauding tart tanked up on cheap booze and gagging for it without any prior contraception sorted, is tired nugatory nonsense. Coincidentally this change in our society arrived around the same time news broke in the international press of rampantly repressed Irish clergy brutally raping children on an industrial scale. Here’s hoping Boots launch a 2011 Here Cum The Girls campaign, with two for the price of one thrown in for good measure. In the meantime you can read Dave’s latest sermon here − I’m off out to buy some lube and jump on the first cock I see.
June Caldwell is a writer, who after 13 years of journalism, is finally writing a novel. She has a MA in Creative Writing and was winner of ‘Best Blog Post’ award at the 2011 Irish Blog Awards. You can read this post on her own blog here:
So, according to David Quinn, being in a committed relationship reduces my chances of condom splittage, diahorrea, nausea, and general lust-driven accidents?
News to me!
I’m truly and honestly an equal-rights feminist, men EQUAL to women, not inferior, not lesser, not stupid… but in cases like this I lean strongly towards the “no womb, no opinion” tactic.
In brief: Fuck away off, David Quinn. Fuck away off.
Not sure I agree with the ‘no womb no opinion’ concept. Surely the contraception debate should include both sexes?
Personal freedom and responsibility are the issues here, and until abortion on demand is made legal in this country we will all continue to exist in a country where institutions such as the State and Catholic Church become involved in areas which are none of their business, denying the rights of the individual to self-determination.
The “no womb, no opinion tactic” does little more than alienate men of an egalitarian and liberal nature, and gives the option of passing the buck to those who would absolve themselves of responsibility for unwanted pregnancies. It’s worth bearing in mind (from a strategic perspective) that those opinions can and should be translated into votes necessary for constitutional change and appropriate legislation to be passed. Until the debate over availability of contraceptive measures gives equal voice to all those rights will remain out of reach.
Well said!
So, according to David Quinn, being in a committed relationship reduces my chances of condom splittage, diahorrea, nausea, and general lust-driven accidents?
No, it’s more than that. According to David Quinn, being in a committed relationship means you want babies. Now. “Commitment” in Quinn’s eyes is a corrective for that phase of deviance women go through where we deny our true maternal nature by engaging in non-reproductive sexual activity. Just get us down the aisle, and proper order will be restored.
Fair dues, June, David Quinn’s article had to be one of the most appalling columns I’ve read in a long time. To address one area that he chooses to ignore, I’m amazed that the role of men is entirely absent, almost as if it were my droit de seigneur to get half a dozen milkmaids and the baker’s daughter up-the-pole, as if I could afford the child support for all the children I had sired. The man is damn near feudal in his views.
What really galls me is that he ignores the right of married couples to determine how many children they have, as if every pregnancy should be and is a blessing, regardless of circumstances – economic or otherwise. Speaking as a stay-at-home dad, I don’t want responsibility for two in nappies at the one time. More power to Boots and a secular, demand-driven rather than Catholic-determined service.
Men are absent from the debate because women are the lust jockeys, etc etc etc., it’s total Garden of Eden crud. Your points are very valid, especially about married couples having the right to choose *not* to want more babies, and so on. I have one friend who was totally gutted to have a third child, it almost ruined them. And he felt terrible guilt for feeling it too. The most offensive part of his analysis is the young tart on a Monday morning after a bender thing. Such incredible ignorance can only be borne out of not having a clue.
Eve as the original and everlasting temptress who fell from God first, dragging Adam with her, and men as innocent eejits who still haven’t a clue? It’s sad to think that so many would still agree with that sort of anachronistic thought.
But you’re absolutely right, the whole article reeks of a extremely nasty and short-sighted misogyny.
Eve was punished severely for her attempt to gain knowledge, for disobedience and for exerting independence from her husband. She was also banned from getting the pill up until the 1980s. She drives a lime green punto now and has left Adam to stew in his benighted juices.
Adam always struck me as a rather cowardly creature who had his chance (and lost it) to stand up upright (for himself and his wife) and say, “That fruit was delicious – why the prohibition on eating it?”
Or maybe there was a proto-Adam, like Lilith, whose existence was far too controversial to leave in the Good Book?
‘And God forbid if we should ever have abortion available in Ireland, we’ll be dashing out to get preggers just for the Nilfisk novelty of it all’ is probably the best line I’ve ever read, ever. Anywhere.
What young Dave also seems to be oblivious of is that being in the position of needing to take it isn’t the funnest way a woman likes to spend her days. Its a scary, humiliating place to find yourself in. There’s always the chance the blasted thing won’t work and its pretty severe on the body. So actually relying on that as your main method of contraception? Really, Dave?
It is absolutely terrifying, no doubts about it. I’ve never been through it but have been with people who have…it’s regularly written off as a type of cosmetic procedure by the pro-lifers. One woman I had a blazing row with one night said it was ‘easy as a dental appointment to loose women’. Crazy stuff. But also a hideously lazy arguement.
I suspect he has no idea what the results of the MAP are – he writes about it as though it’s some sort of magic pill that instantly gets rid of a promiscuous slapper’s precious baby, as opposed to something that essentially brings on a nasty, painful period to stop a pregnancy occurring.
Too true! But it’s never about the physical reality, it’s always about the ethereal non-realities and abject morals, which is why it’s so offensive to so many, who, probably unlike David, have to deal with contraception.
Ditto Jude! Brilliant June. Yet again. You take my thoughts and make them coherent.
I caught some of this guy’s twittering during the week. I was not impressed.
Who are all these women having sex with that they might pregnant then? I don’t think it’s other women, right? Why not to suggest to men that if they don’t want to knock girls up accidentally or otherwise, they just don’t have sex with them.
I got equally incensed at George Hook screaming on his radio show about how wrong it was that 15 year old girls be able to get it without what he considered adequate counselling about it because he appeared to equate it with abortion in his own mind. It doesn’t seem to have occured to him that said 15 year old could quite freely continue being pregnant without getting adequate counselling either. No one seems to get upset about counselling unless it’s about ending a pregnancy or preventing one after the fact of sex. The hyprocrisy really irritates me.
I actually don’t care whose having what kind of sex on a Friday night. I have more interesting things in my life. That David does appear to care is worrying because it is None Of His Business. I mean he doesn’t appear to care that this morning I’m making coffee, right?
Accidents happen. I cannot believe that it has taken until now for someone in Ireland to force the issue on emergency contraception. And that company had to be an outside company.
Well said Treasa! Wanton woman is slippery & slimy like the snake (a line from the untranslated old bible, later removed). Women are powerfully dirty…men just can’t help but flounder to desire and spunk inside them, so the poor creatures are not to blame, Etc. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. BTW, any updates on the male pill or did it simply never take off due to lack of demand?
Well said June.
David really needs to face up to a few realities. Contraception in all its various forms has given women and men a lot of much need control over the way their lives unfold and it is the previous lack of availability here that has caused no end of heartache.
When I was one of the ‘Young, single women who were out on the tear over the weekend’ I had to attend an unfamiliar GP and testify to being a married woman trying to regulate the number of children I wanted in order to get the pill. No spur of the moment hedonistic madness there, just some careful planning. The same pill disagreed with me terribly and I suffered debilitating mood swings but since condoms weren’t readly available at that stage what else could I do? Abstain, yes but I was in my early twenties, in a stable relationship and unwilling to make that unnecesary sacrifice. I thought I was behaving responsibly in this instance by not risking an unwanted pregnancy. Happily the situation never arose (this raises a question mark over the true level of “demand” – these instances are relatively rare) but had a condom burst or had I suffered a tummy bug I would have immediately gone in search of the MAP – not that it would have been easy to find.
David writes that “Any sane person would opt for a society in which there is little or no demand. Demand can only be high where there is a high level of self-defeating, self-destructive behaviour”. Yet the most pressing need for contraception that ever arose in my life and the most radical form it took was when, at 38, my husband and I decided we were delighted with our two little boys and had finished our family. He went and got the snip. How self-destructive was that! Think of all the potential babies we prevented! The relief that this particular boring, middle-aged, happily married couple is experiencing in not having to take the horrid pill, fumble for a condom or head out early looking for the MAP is indescribable.
Contraception – even in its most radical, surgical form – is used by boring marrieds as well as madourofit young wans ya know!
Very well explained Eleanor and good of you to share such private info. Married couples and even those in committed relationships David refers to have a constant battle with contraception. I personally hate being on the chemically-loaded option but never feel truly safe with condoms and worry about men’s health post-snip, so as you get older it feels more of a strain. I had a friend who had that very condom burst scenario but then went and got the MAP (7 years ago now) and that didn’t work either. She was devastated to find herself pregnant as she had just got her life back together after suffering a lot of family trauma and started a college course, etc. As she was an ‘A La Carte Catholic’ she couldn’t consider a termination but was praying for a miscarriage all the way through her pregnancy and the entire episode was fraught with non-acceptance and guilt. It’s a futile situation to find yourself in. I’ve had to consider this recently myself, being the age I’m at with the wonky hips/health and all that malarkey, while wanting a child (and trying for one) a few short years ago, I can no longer envisage it a reality. If I got preggers now it’d be a disaster. Do the Catholic Police think that any of this is ‘lite’ to deal with at any age? The total and utter concentration on the sexual habits of non-married folk or gay/lesbian or the young or whatever, is handily reductionist and heartless. Quinn sees this as a Monday Morning Pill sought out by irresponsible tanked up teen revellers who scoffed too many alco-pops but have €45 left over to spend. A kind of genital ASBO! If he’s that narrow sighted he should take care not to bang into walls and hurt himself.
[...] since I wrote this, David Quinn wrote this in the Independent. You’ll find an answer in the Anti-Room here but I have one or two comments. The category most likely to show up at a family planning clinic on [...]
I’m a little baffled by the focus on “counselling”. It seems to presume that some sort of trauma has been or is about to be suffered. And while a burst condom, or gasp! an ill thought out one night stand can be a nuisance or cause for some reflection – taking the MOP is hardly, for the most part, a traumatic experience.
I think it’s rooted in a (largely unspoken) belief that women are not ever, under any circumstances, to be allowed to make their own decisions about sex. Heaven forfend. We must be “counselled” at every available opportunity, for our own benefit, you understand.
(To be clear – I think counselling is good. I think people should have opportunities to ask questions and talk in a safe environment. I just don’t think making birth control choices is indicative of requiring counselling.)
You have a point about women being traditionally told what to do in these situations, but I think counselling is desperately needed when women are faced with difficult choices later on. The guilt of an unwanted pregnancy can totally blind a person’s ability to make the right choice for themselves. Up until recently a lot of this counselling is manipulative and pro-life led (still hear these stories) though more and more it’s becoming non-judgemental and objective. Contraception was never discussed in my first Catholic secondary school because they somehow believed if they informed us of what was available they would ‘encourage’ use of what was available. This is still the kind of attitude Dave and his mates have. It is hideously offensive and smacks of superiority complex too: that people are naïve and too easily sheep-led. At the end of the day it’s all about control. Thanks to contraception, people now have control over how they lead their lives, the quality of their lives (giving more to less children) and are happier for it, but the church is still stomping its feet and wanting to suture back in. They were happy as hell when women had 14 kids, no quality of life and were miserable, as long as they populated the pews on Sundays and gave the men in dresses a good turn-out.
June, total admiration, this is hilarious and brilliant. Here Cum The Girls!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Pat O'Mahony. Pat O'Mahony said: If you haven't read it already… RT @junecaldwell: My reply to religious loons like David Quinn on contraception: http://bit.ly/fjtvLm [...]
Is there any truth to his allegation that sales of the morning after pill spike after bank holidays?
Oh I’m pretty sure Dinosaur Dave et al could dig up some ‘US research’ on this or a poll from some pro-life organisation or some such. Boots will no doubt put together their own in time. And even if it is *true* that the majority of people availing of MAP are young, single women, I’m still more interested in the ‘pull from air’ stat that these women are tanked up on weekend benders?
So there is some truth to it then? Can you provide a link? Thanks
Sorry…to confirm, I know of no such research. Dave says this in his column: ‘The category most likely to show up at a family planning clinic on a Monday morning looking for their morning-after pill are young, single women who were out on the tear over the weekend.’ but does not offer any insight into where he reefed this conclusion, what he does say in the next sentence (and thereby linking the two statements) is: ‘Family planning agencies confirm that demand goes up after bank holiday weekends.’ Obviously this can be confirmed or he wouldn’t be so dense to say it in a national newspaper. The only solid stat he does use related to abortions in the US – ‘In the US, unmarried women account for around 85pc of terminations’ – which again has nothing whatsoever to do with contraception trends in Ireland. Basically these lose connections are knitted into an old pattern to back up his personal beliefs on women’s sexual behaviour. Lots of dropped stitches does not a good knitted scarf make.
I’m sure, if and when spikes occur, that they happen after Valentine’s Day too – and heaven forbid, after religious festivals and happy Catholic nuptials also. Maybe after heat waves, maybe after cold snaps – all that information needs to be correlated into a long-term survey, the likes of which Quinn does not care to name.
Regardless of where he gets his information from, his moan that “Twitter in Ireland is a secular/left sea and therefore a lot of people who follow me on it hate everything I stand for” displays incredible naivete – what could he expect but that flies will be attracted to shit?
Well, almost certainly, I would have thought – if there have been three days when people haven’t been able to access the doctor’s of the pharmacist’s, then there are going to be more people needing to buy it on the Tuesday morning…
My thoughts exactly! And of course, there’s always all the people in relationships who actually have a few days off and a nice, lazy bank holiday Monday morning. God forbid they’d be getting up to anything.
Are we not in danger of crediting David Quinn, with too much power and influence, by even discussing his magically inspired morality? His particular form of magical thinking is on the wane, would it not be more appropriate, to just nod and smile indulgently at his magic talk, as one would a senile relative making inappropriate remarks regarding foreign games or young people today?
Even if that is true Paul, I still have an opinion!
Oh right. Thanks anyway. To be honest, I really don’t give two hoots about D. Quinn, or the morning after pill to be honest, of who takes it. Certainly isn’t going to be me!
I’m just trying to find out when birds are least likely to expect me to wrap up. Shitload of chlamydia here isn’t going to spread itself!
Clark, you will be giving more than two hoots when it’s your sister/cousin/friend who needs it or girlfriend/fiancee/wife if you’re lucky enough to have one.
You had me at rambo-catholic June!! Great article, and some great comments here too. Sometimes I’d like to skip to the end, where people like D Quinn are dismissed as mere cranks, and the the issues surrounding contraception and abortion are no longer issues because Ireland will have finally decided to allow all her citizens the personal freedom to decide to do what they bloody well want with their bodies, regardless of whether they’re tarts like me & June.
Thanks JK. The hideously intrusive interferring intermeddling Catholic church have lost most of us and for good reason – a lot of people have sought out their own brand of non-aggressive spirituality instead. Something very gross about supposedly celibate men intefering with women’s fertility anyway…I had to check with my Ma a while ago if I imagined the Billings Method banner board sitting in the lobby of the church, complete with a picture of a thermometre (that you stick up your fanny to measure the ‘heat’ of your approaching feritility days) when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure anthropologists in a hundred years or more will be wetting themselves looking back at how we lived and how utterly deluded we were about these ‘God servants’ on earth. “Hallelujah” for progress.
I’m with Eleanor on this. When our last child was born (we had three under the age of four for a few months – all planned pregnancies) hubbie had the snip. The relief of being 33 years old and not having to worry about contraception any more was HUGE.
Pregnancy is very hard on a woman’s body, and if I were in a position now at 38 when contraception failed I would not hesitate to get the MAP as I just don’t think I would be physically able for any more pregnancies to say nothing of the costs involved in rearing a fourth child. Thankfully I don’t have to worry about this but I sure as hell would like that choice to be there. In addition as other have said the MAP really messes with your body and can throw your cycle for months afterwards so it is definitely not a quick and easy fix to be popped like your morning vitamins.
‘And God forbid if we should ever have abortion available in Ireland, we’ll be dashing out to get preggers just for the Nilfisk novelty of it all’ – I also think this is a classic line – one for the book of 2011 Quotes of the Year I think!!
Thank you so much Paula and great to hear such candid detail from married and/or couples with kids about how contraception impacts on their lives. It’s important for Dave & Co. to hear this and to realise that it’s an issue effecting every sexually active person, whether young or old, committed or fleeting.
I don’t agree with David Quinn’s pre/proscriptions for the management of women’s reproductive and sexual functions, which is a matter for women themselves in any case. I do think, however (hard hat and full-body armour on now) that he is raising a very important question – to wit: are the licence and freedom that contraception and abortion bring in relation to the consequences of unprotected/natural sex an unlimited good? Do social and personal questions arise for the way we manage our sex lives? Answer, yes, imho. Is it ok for DQ to talk out loud and express his concerns without being called a fucker and a cunt? Surely. Was he suggesting that anyone who disagreed with him could only want to jump on the first cock she came upon? No, not at all. I’ve been accused of being an extreme feminist by people in the past – by other women what is more – but I can’t see anything in what DQ wrote that implied he thought young women in search of the morning after pill after a weekend on the tear are really just slags. Unhappy and misguided, perhaps, but not slags.
I don’t disagree with him either that most women would prefer not to have to avail of either the morning after pill or abortion and that that fact in itself says something about how most people would prefer to behave sexually. That’s not a moral or religious judgment, just an observation of fact. Also I think DQ went out of his way to ensure that he was not being judgmental about people in what he wrote – he specifically declares that intention in his article. Yes, his opinions are thoroughly embedded in his Catholic view of the world and that automatically implies criticism of certain behaviour but not a writing-off of the worth or humanity of those whose behaviour he criticises. Sometimes it seems that the understandable anger that fuels anti-Catholic sentiment has itself become borderline oppressive at a personal level. I say that as someone who thinks the institution of the church is rotten, perverted and corrupt to its core and that it should be shut down as a criminal, murderously woman-oppressing organisation – to say nothing of the unspeakable cruelty of celibacy to its men and women religious and the children who were/are their victims.
But there is a difference between Catholics and their institutional church. In all probability, some?/many?/most? of the people contributing, reading or writing on this blog have parents with views identical to David Quinn’s. Would we call them fuckers and cunts in print or online if they had written that article? The invective directed at DQ for expressing a genuinely-held conviction was/is intimidating in my view. The same language directed at inveterate, political liars and self-serving opportunists is another thing entirely. Nothing in DQ’s article comes anywhere near to comparing to it. It’s a pity because a more constructive engagement with him, without compromising on points of disagreement would be infinitely more effective in actually persuading people that he is fundamentally wrong.
Thanks for this Miriam, you raise some interesting points and I appreciate it. Firstly I didn’t call DQ a cunt or a fucker, just to get that out of the way! I pointed out that other people had and that he was considering himself a victim in this respect. Of course he has the right to air his views, even if the majority of people out there don’t agree with those views or find them offensive, as I have an equal right to respond to them. I’m amazed that you would say: ‘but I can’t see anything in what DQ wrote that implied he thought young women in search of the morning after pill after a weekend on the tear are really just slags.’ I think it’s very clear in his invective that he thinks exactly that: ‘The category most likely to show up at a family planning clinic on a Monday morning looking for their morning-after pill are young, single women who were out on the tear over the weekend.’ Where did he pull this interesting stat from? Young women on the tear, drunk and irresponsible, having sex without thinking, and all the rest that you can infer from such a statement.
He may well have couched his column in a few careful sentences to begin with but it does not, for one minute, baste over his inherent Catholic prejudices and/or associated misogyny. He states that ‘demand for the pill is created by unprotected sex’, again how can he be so utterly sure of this? You’d need to be mentally deranged to wander through life as a woman having regular bouts of unprotected sex while not considering any of the consequences. You’ve heard from women on this thread (including women in David’s deluxe ‘married’ category) of burst condoms and different scenarios where the MAP may be needed, that were not automatically drunken unprotected sex scenarios? His use of statistics is bent too as he starts citing US abortion figures [what's this got to do with Boots selling the MAP in Ireland?] and slowly links in all these statements to what he considers a type of ‘anti-moralism’ that is actually ‘harming women’, because God love us we need so much protection, executed in utilitarian fashion for the moral good of the nation by men like him.
I also disagree with what you say re: there being ‘a difference between Catholics and their institutional church’. Why would there be? If you claim to rigidly follow a certain religion and allow yourself to be ruled and/or governed by its doctrine, you stand for what the particular church or religion believes and behave accordingly, i.e., as your bosses tell you to. It doesn’t allow for a ‘diet version’, which is why I sign up to none and never will. So I cannot assume to go easy on Quinn’s views just because my parent’s and their peers may share some of them? That would be nutso, we’d never get anywhere, grow as people or progress, if we stayed confined in the previous generation’s moral coop. I’m not setting out to prove that Quinn is ‘fundamentally wrong’, because he can say and think what he likes at the end of the day, but I do take offence when a right-wing uber religious conservative makes crazy comments about women’s sexual ‘behaviour’. It’s clearly none of his business. I’m sure there’ll be more academic and interesting and pasturised and in-depth responses to him somewhere in the Sunday papers tomorrow, but the beauty of a blog format is that the writer is free to say it as it is, viscerally, including using uncomfortable words like ‘cock’ without having to suffer the ire of a worried about advertisement revenues print media Editor in doing so.
The argument here is not anti-Catholic in essence (although June, you know my opinion on this already!). Other religions take equally squeamishly repressive views on women’s freely expressed sexuality. In the case of extreme forms of Islam they even force women to cover their entire bodies in a drape like kids used to wear pretending to be ghosts at Hallowe’en. The issue here at heart is the link between totalitarianism and misogyny. I’m reading a terrifyingly brilliant book about present day North Korea and there is a striking comparison between the prudish nature of the regime’s attitude towards women and sex, and that of theistic states like Iran or Saudi Arabia. Remember 1984? In Orwell’s dystopian vision one of the worst things to be was a free sexual being. The pill liberated women and one hopes men. Liberation is anti-thetical to regimes that want to control. And the first area of human life they want to dictate and dominate is personal life, particularly in the bedroom. Abortion wasn’t just illegal in Catholic states under the Ceaucescu regime in Romania it was regarded as a capital offence. Ditto Nazi Germany. There’s a lesson here in all of this!
Cheers Hen. X
June – thanks for an excellent and passionate refutation of David Quinn’s Indo piece – the best I have seen yet. HEAR HEAR!
Having returned home to Ireland following a number of years living in the UK, it was an unwelcome shock to me to find that the standards of gynae healthcare in general for women are still far behind that of our neighbours across the water – it’s not just about access to the MAP – it’s all areas – starting with womens’ health education which is completely insufficient. Even my own Irish Gynae can’t bring herself to use the words ‘vagina’ and ‘sex’ – preferring to use the terms ‘down there’ and ‘your business’/'relations’. You’d think she was closing a deal in Australia rather than talking about a D&C.
To be fair to David Quinn, I have tried to take him seriously, even though I don’t share his viewpoints on anything – but I do think you can disagree with someone and still respect them. The problem with David Quinn is that it’s very difficult to respect writing that is so short on substantiated facts and so long on preaching and a kind of quasi religious emotion. It’s just not persuasive – it’s patronising. Us women spend a considerable part of our lifetimes dealing with multiple aspects of our reproductive and sexual health – and at times in circumstances beyond our control. That makes us the authorities on our uteruses and ovaries, and makes David Quinn, well, about as redundant as a virginal vagina. For someone who spends so much time in the media talking about womens’ issues, he could do with spending some time getting to understand them first.
Love your writing June – thanks a million!
GS
Crikey, that’s unbelievable about your gynae woman! How bizarre!? I found the same when I lived in the UK (and even in downtown Belfast): a much more grown-up approach towards women’s health, especially sexual health. I know I was a bit woof woof rough on Dinosaur Dave, but I genuinely found the sentiment expressed in his column offensive. He makes it sound as if no-one puts in the effort to think anything through outside of holy matrimony and that it’s this casual lack of concern of drunk, stupid, uncouth youth that feeds the demand for the MAP. It astounds me how uber religious people are so out of touch with the hearts & souls of those their church of choice wish to control and puppeteer. His facts were at best haphazard and at worse, misleading. There have always been unwanted pregnancies and accidents back to when single parenthood meant a 45-year stunt in a hellish institution to present day, and contraception has been a huge emancipatory factor for us all. Thanks too for your kind comment!
I don’t think you were too hard on him at all – I wish the Indo would publish your post as a response! – his article was pointedly misogynistic. It angers me that he hides behind this ‘religious’ Iona Institute slant on things in order to platform intolerance.
I also note that at no point in his article was ‘man’ mentioned (you know, the other part of the duo that causes pregnancy) but the word ‘demand’ was used 15 times. Interesting semantics I thought. Women ‘demanding’ the MAP just like they ‘demanded’ the vote and ‘demanded’ equal pay with men. You don’t have to make too many mental associations to see what his problem is!
His ‘facts’ are always haphazard. It’s lazy writing and even though I completely disagree with him and them, the group of conservatives he represents deserve a better voice to make this a proper intelligent debate where we could all learn something from each other.
He’s not receptive to learning though and that’s the problem. There’s too much of this grandstanding under the cover of ‘I’m all religious and you are secular and therefore wrong’ going on in Ireland still.
At the end of the article he claims there was “no actual moral judgement” made!!! While claiming to be “rational” and “factual”!!!
As the first comment said, would you ever fuck away off, David Quinn.
I found it ever so slightly manipulative, the format was something like this: I’m a victim of other people’s ire because I’m speaking the truth, look here at what the stats say to back me up, this is my real opinion but it should also be the general opinion of a right-thinking society who wants the best for all our daughters, I’m not judgemental just saying it as it is, any criticism can be levelled at the ‘new left’ who are really a type of ‘new right’ using a lot of bad language, I’m the one who’s rational, etc etc etc.
Ever so slightly, indeed. There aren’t enough explanation marks in the world!
June, just a final thought on this. You were very courageous to take these forces on. They are still with us and still dangerous and powerful. Stay safe my brave one. Love…H
Are you on the brandy!? We can discuss church & state in town on Tuesday!
No, not at all in fact. Been reading “Nothing to Envy”, by the LA Times correspondent in China who has written a fantastic book about North Korea. As I said in my previous post it is quite startling to observe the parallels between that supposedly communist dictatorship (although I would dispute it being in any way left-wing) and the Islamo-nut job nations of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi, etc. etc. in their attitudes towards women and sexuality. No Brandy tonite sadly…..just nerves re Merseyside derby tomorrow. COYB!
His whole article is one big judgement fart.
First he talks about lowering ‘the demand’ yet when I asked him REPEATEDLY what this demand was currently, he had no answer. Second- he fails to take into his account that committed couples have sex and also pregnancy scares. His assumption that EC is for the wanton is poppycock and based on his moral leanings. Thirdly, David is anti- abortion, leading me to ponder why an anti- abortion head the ball would also be against a pill that prevents an unwanted pregnancy.
His logic is faulty, his facts plucked from the air, and his inability to deal with questions put to him is tedious. As is his playing the victim card. Sure some folk called him names, but many of us did not and he still refused to engage.
Love all the lame feminist high fiving here.
‘You were very courageous to take these forces on.’
Give me a break,it’s always easy to pick out the most extreme example in order to make your argument a lot easier.You criticise him for saying that he doesn’t take into account people in marriages etc. who may have genuine reasons for using the Morning After Pill yet you fail to entertain any question of the moral implications of the widespread use of it,especially in relation to young girls.You make out as if David Quinn and his angry article are best examples of Catholic and moral arguments against the availability of the Morning After Pill.You choosing him as an example is no different from him using the people calling him a cunt as the best example of his opposition. I mean you have some idiot in the comments here with the usual garbage of talking about Nazis and how he read 1984. I think that the world would be better off without extremists like you and the people on this comments page as well as people like David Quinn.
‘His use of statistics is bent too as he starts citing US abortion figures [what's this got to do with Boots selling the MAP in Ireland?]‘
What has members of the priesthood molesting children got to do with the validity or non validity of David Quinn’s opinion?
I’m asking a rhetorical question there of course,because any idiot can see what is implied when you bring it up in a conversation but you can’t see how abortion figures and its legalisation relate to a debate on the morning after pill(regardless of your position on it)?
My constructive criticism is the same constructive criticism that I apply to David Quinn,it is possible to disagree with someone with blinding yourself to their arguments and without giving in to the temptation of demonising them and all who are you like them.Oddly enough though,despite how unneccessarily confronting and over the top he is,I think he’d be a much more open mind in admitting his faults than you would.
Thanks for your late-night comment. I’m really not sure what you’re asking or what you want me to answer as your comment is 80% repetition of everything I’ve already said in the article and/or comment thread followed by an admission that you’re only asking a rethorical question, finishing off with praise for David Quinn and labelling me an extremist, while saying – without knowing me from Adam (no holy pun intended there) – that I’d be less likely to admit to my faults than him. Apart from just screaming incoherently, what are you actually looking to know?
If this were all about feminist high-fiving, Stephen, you might expect that I would have been shouted down for disagreeing with the line that ‘no womb means no opinion’ – I wasn’t, and for good reason, it’s an issue of liberty and equality which also has a very grave impact upon men. A patriarchal society does no favours to anyone except those in league with it.
As for extremism, I haven’t seen a single person mention the happy man with fourteen kids and his wife with her uterus hanging down around her ankles used as an excuse for birth control, no – so far there has been discussion of families with two/three kids, that’s all. And that’s where we want it to stay, which is the point – that we control how large our families are, and not the State when it’s overly-influenced by Catholic dogma. Not the State overly-influenced by any religious dogma or teaching, just to clarify that: it’s none of their bloody business, whether it be imam, rabbi or priest who has an opinion, unless the individual or couple practising birth control wishes to hear it and live according to those precepts.
Also Stephen, I think there’s a clear understanding of morality here, and an acute awareness of where harm may be done – in this instance, an overuse of the MAP which is treated very seriously here. There’s also an awareness of men’s health, and the impact of vasectomies and unwanted pregnancies upon both physical and mental health. Where the lack of morality or debate about what is the best thing to do in a given situation? There is an underlying ethos at work here, and it’s a liberal one which sets great value on education, which will do its best to make sure that the use of the MAP does not become as widespread as binge-drinking among young people because they will be informed about its consequences, responsible use and how best to avoid needing it.
But to deal with that requires more open discussion about a lot things wrong with our society that prefers to dismiss the proponents of particular views as high-fiving feminists, extremists or randy slags, that does its best to brush all our problems under the carpet and pretend they don’t exist – this is the sort of problem that D. Quinn seems to feel resentment about on Twitter, that he’s surrounded by people who don’t want to brush these very serious issues under the carpet.
I didn’t mean to insult you there,sorry,I mean to say that David Quinn at least seems so expect people to oppose his view while a lot of people here and on Twitter dislike him purely because he challenges them.I don’t think I praised him,the guy is a bit too out there for my liking,but you use him as an example to bash Catholics while criticising him for not doing enough research about the people he is bashing.
So….I’m basically curious as to why you stooped to the level of a guy you so obviously are repulsed by?I mean do you not think that your article,coupled with all the people on twitter calling him a cunt,mysoganist etc. is only distancing people as much as he distances people from his argument?
Hey, I’m not repulsed by him. I respect him as a fellow journalist – even if I don’t agree with his core views – and have engaged with him amicably on other issues before (in an article I wrote on foreign adoption, for instance). Neither am I being anti-Catholic (but I had to highlight the inherent hypocrisy with regard to religious moralising and the role major religions like Catholicism played in the absue of children, etc.). I’m not fond of any/many religions as I’m an avid believer in life before death as opposed to life afterwards, so I find the whole religion thing quite conceptually silly. I genuinely felt his column was offensive and felt a strong urge to reply. Quite a few of us tried to engage with DQ on Twitter but were not graced with an answer, even as to where he pulled his stat/notion from that it’s mainly young girls on a bender who do or will avail of this pill. He seemingly had no interest in answering anyone whether they mildly disagreed with him or did so vehemently. We can choose to keep our traps shut and shrug and say nothing (which I also do a lot of the time) or we can hold up a mirror and tennis-ball the argument back and in doing so, stir a debate that needs to be had. The ‘idiot’ you refer to in the thread above who mentions Nazis is the Ireland Correspondant of The Guardian and has covered the religious and political conflict in the North for the past 25 years and spent time in the middle-east and Bosnia, where religious fundamentalism, in some cases, waged very serious wars and caused huge suffering. So I guess he feels strongly on certain topics. However, I understand what you are saying and I appreciate the fact that you contributed at all. Imagine a society where no-one spoke back – I think they’re called regimes, aren’t they?
I apologise for calling that guy an idiot,I understand that his opinion was stated in an informal way.
Anyways,thanks for the reply.I’m not really going to continue any further with this,because in all honesty it’s not something that I feel all to strongly about or am particularly informed about.Though maybe that was my point to begin with,that some of us do disagree with you and are not as confrontational(despite what my first post may have suggested)as David Quinn.And your eloquent replies have shown that not everyone on your side of the debate is as agressive as some of the people on Twitter calling him a cunt etc.
So,I understand and respect your opinion now.I just want to convey that the many good things about Catholicism,charity and altruism,are the main issues with which Catholics concern themselves on a daily basis.David Quinn is a white collar Catholic and therefore can remove himself the more difficult aspects of the faith in his writings and indulge in that which suits him(his article on defending the state funding private schools really lost me).It was just the title of the blog which threw me,because to be a good Catholic would prohibit one from thinking anyone’s a tart. But I can understand why you’d get that impression from Mr.Quinn.
Anywho,before I ramble on(any more),I will state that while I disagree on some of these issues with you,that I respect your opinion and it is perhaps best to ignore David Quinn as a representative of the Catholic faith because not only does he insult others more than quote scripture in his articles,but because he points out what is wrong with others rather than stating what is good about his own point of view,which would be altogether more convincing I think.
So…..best of luck.I’m no pro at this(I didn’t actually realise this was a journalist’s blog before I posted,ha)but cheers for the reply and I hope I’ve made something approaching a coherent point.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and that’s the wonder of blogs! They can be a lot more powerful [and heated] than newsprint, so no worries at all…and it’s a women writer’s blog, not journos, a kind of mix of all sorts from science and music buffs to journalists, novelists and busy mums, etc. It’s Monday now and I’m putting the Quinn camp out of my head to get on with other writing. Ta for dropping by and ta too for Alan’s input above.
I completely disagree with DQ, but I wish people would drop the “DQ says something and I then adopt his voice and say some loosely related extreme sentences to portray him in an extreme light” tactic of writing. It would be fair enough if that was the way he writes, but he writes in a quasi-intellectual style (I say quasi as he doesn’t name his sources, and his logical leaps are TERRIBLE). I don’t think he is calling women who take the MAP slags.
While I am sure married couples do make use of the MAP, and the stories given in the comments have been portrayed as some kind of statistical evidence, I also think there would be a lot more stories of people taking the pill due to drunken mistakes, if people chose to tell those stories. I don’t think there is anything wrong with making drunken mistakes, so I don’t agree with DQ, but only discussing married people’s need for the pill is just as one-sided as DQ only discussing the drunken mistakes.
No-one is discussing ‘married people’s’ use of the MAP in isolation, I’ve cited in my piece that I’ve taken the MAP twice and I’m not married. And I have no control on who writes back on here naming whatever experience, but it obviously did hit a chord with people in so-called ‘committed’ relationships who took offensive at DQ’s narrow line of reasoning. We’re talking about a variety of situations that are often outside the young drunken silly girl pre-supposed viewpoint. As for wishing I wrote this piece differently to suit your taste (or perhaps that I needn’t have written it at all thereby not even reacting to Quinn and giving him attention/power/spotlight as a few people on here have intimated), there’s nothing really I can say to that. I’m not obliged to imitate his ‘quasi intellectual style’ in order to get my point across. For the record, I don’t think there’s anything even vaguely intellectual about his column at all.
Of course you are not obliged to imitate his style to get your point across. My criticism is that that particular style of sarcastic voice adoption is not a good way to get your point across at all. I think while some people find it amusing, a lot of people spot it and think “oh that’s not what he’s saying at all” and dismiss the rest of your article. This is meant as constructive criticism, not enforcing an obligation.
My point re discussion of married people is not a criticism of your writing. Its more that there has been very little discussion of those drunken instances and a lot more of the married situations across the comments section.
I think it would actually be constructive to acknowledge that there are plenty of instances of failure to use other forms of contraception due to drunkenness. I would say to DQ that both men and women go out at the weekends, have a few drinks, meet someone nice, and decide to sleep with them, without being completely bladdered or being “on the tear”. And even a moderate amount of alcohol can impair your judgement about contraception. So short of completely banning alcohol, there’s no real solution to that, and it doesn’t point to some sort of malaise within our society.
That alcohol plays a *huge* part in contraceptive accidents (I was going to say ‘contraceptive fuckups’ there but you might think I was trying to be deliberately funny) across the entire range could well be true, but DQ failed to mention any other possible scenario or even ‘men’s role’ in the two-way sex tango at all, which is very revealing. Again, you’re making judgements on how I wrote or chose to express myself, which is beside the point and wholly subjective. I’m sure not everyone found this post deliberately ‘amusing’, as the replies on the thread clearly show. I certainly didn’t feel in knee-slapping hilarious form writing it: I was angry. However, this is how I write, my other posts are written in the same tone/manner and some of them are about health, politics, the economy, family, and so on.
Having read this blog first, then the comments, and then linked to Mr. Quinn’s article, I see why so many married individuals responded. We are currently expecting our fourth child together, and the fifth in our family. I have used the MAP twice in my life, once when the condom slipped off in my pre-married life (still in a committed relationship all be it not married) and once during my current committed relationship. I was only free to marry my husband four years ago due to a long running divorce proceeding. This current pregnancy will be our first ‘legitimate’ child, and our last child as he is going to get the snip. I hope that our society is one with more choices like the MAP. Responsible/moral living is all about making choices. Active morality does not exist without the choice to do the moral thing. I chose to actively not be pregnant. I have also chosen to be actively pregnant. I do not know another way to be a parent other than by active choice. Because at the end of the day, that is what a pregnancy results in, being a parent. You spend the rest of your life making choices about how to parent your child, and that is a huge responsibility. Thanks June, for a well written, emotionally evocative, complex read.
Thanks so much for this personal detail Eve, each individual story brings it home how we all deal with the contraception issue, whether married, with a long-term partner, or in a committed (or even non-committed) relationship and you’re one of the few on here who’s mentioned parenthood! I couldn’t agree more with your sentence: ‘Active morality does not exist without the choice to do the moral thing,’ and the ‘right thing’ of course being whatever is best and comfortabe for you, for how you want to live and be. I live in fear of getting pregnant now, it’s like the early 20-something fears coming back with gusto, because I’d find it very difficult to go through with having a child, but would crumble at the thoughts of going through a termination and my heart goes out to anyone who is faced with this reality at any stage in their life. It’s an ongoing reality for single women/couples/married folk, from the very start of sexual activity through to a post-menopausal outcome and it ain’t ever black & white. Appreciate your comment and very best of luck with the baba’s imminent arrival.
I take grave offence at David’s article suggesting that anyone needing it is after a mad weekend on the tear and sleeping around. There were two times in my life when I need the MAP, once I successfully did get it from a female gp though she didn’t treat me overly well. The other time I failed to get it because the doctor was not available, it being in the 90s before out of hours services were heard of. On both occasions I had slept with the man I am still with, it was a committed relationship on one of those occasions, the other we were discussing getting back together after time apart. I was not sleeping around, and even if I was, the person I would have been sleeping with would have been sleeping around as well. So Mr Quinn, remember for every tart that has sex recklessly as you seem to see it, there is a man out there that has to agree to her outrageous demands. Get real!
Hear Hear! Yet another example of how varied these situations can be, which is why generalising is so futile and pointless.
I would disagree strongly with David Quinn’s description of the “typical” morning after pill user. It’s similar to the narrow view held by some about the typical woman who experiences a crisis pregnancy – realistically, there is no such thing as “typical” crisis pregnancy; the women are as varied as could be – single, married, working class, middle class, etc.
I it would be very unwise for us as a society to blindly applaud the reduction in restrictions surrounding the morning after pill without digging deeper.
It is, after all, an abortifacient, a fact which is brushed under the carpet a lot of the time. Aside from any of the moral issues which surround this aspect of the drug’s action, there are several serious side effects which warrant attention, including:
liver disorders, gallbladder disease, high blood pressure, blood clots in the heart, intestines and lungs, increased risk of an ectopic pregnancy, and an increased risk of miscarriage in subsequent pregnancies.
I personally disagree with the MAP, not because it is a contraceptive but because it is an abortifacient. That’s probably too broad an issue to go into here. Regardless of my personal opinion, the fact is that the MAP is being sold to women right now and they deserve to know about the serious side effects. In fact, I would go as far as to say that pharmeceutical companies and dispensers – such as Boots – have an professional obligation to give women this information before they make a decision.
Personally I couldn’t care less if it is or isn’t an abortifacient, but scientifically it can only be one if it takes effect after fertilisation has occurred. Surely then, people who are opposed to abortion should be promoting its ready accessibility so that women can take it in time to prevent fertilisation.
As for the “serious side effects”, all medications potentially have these. Unless it is established to the satisfaction of the medical community generally – and not just to the satisfaction of abortion opponents – that the risks of the morning-after pill are significantly greater than those of other medications, I see no reason why pharmacists should be under an obligation to treat the MAP differently from other drugs.
Agree with you Wendy. It puzzles me why the anti-abortion lobby are often anti-contraception too – it’s more than a Catch 22 – which, errrrr, kinda leads back to the abstinence only option, before being snapped up by a fine Catholic man option, whereby all control of the sex falls to him, like what went on in this fine country for many generations.
Evelyn- the MAP isn’t an abortificant, though? You might be getting it confused with medical abortions, which are pills a person can take to induce abortion.
The morning-after pill, though, is in effect just a high dose of the same stuff you get in regular hormonal contraceptives- it’s just progestin. The way it works is to prevent ovulation, the same way that the pill works. That’s why it is significantly less reliable than other forms of hormonal contraception, by the way- if you’ve already ovulated when you take it, then it’s not going to have any effect at all. Which is, of course, why taking it quickly is so important! The other ways that hormonal contraceptives normally work- thinning endometrium, thickening cervical mucous- just don’t apply here because there’s not enough time.
Also, I’ve done a search for side-effects of the emergency contraceptive pill, and the side-effects don’t seem to line up with what you were saying. Nausea is a common one, which is why the ECP is often prescribed with anti-nausea meds. There’s a small risk of blood clots, as with all hormonal contraceptives containing estrogen. But there’s a progestin-only pill that, as with regular contraceptives, doesn’t have that risk. But that would make sense, since it’s just hormones- the major side-effects seen by most people who take it seem to be a massive case of PMS!
Anyway, just wanted to clear that up, since it seems to me that you’ve gotten emergency contraception and the abortion pill mixed up. Which is a thing that happens an awful lot, but they’re completely different things, with entirely different risks of side effects.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Evelyn. I’m still confused at the ‘science’ of it all, as Wendy says above it can only be an abortifacient if it takes effect after fertilisation has occurred, which is highly unlikely in the few short hours after sex in which the pill is taken. Either way, it’s a way better alternative than going through an abortion further down the line where ‘having the baby’ is not an option for the person. The ‘side effects’ is not a cogent enough argument to get bogged down with when the side effects for one, are made aware to takers (it’s also why it’s only been dispensed at a pharmacy as opposed to being an ‘off the shelf’ med) and secondly, there are side effects with every medication in life: damage to liver and kidneys, skin rashes, potential harm to the unborn child, are also potential ‘side effects’ of Panadol, for instance, which is taken by thousands of people every day for common garden headache.
If only the morning after pill had been available to Ma Quinn….
Now now!