An article featuring comments by Maria Ní Fhlatharta and Amy Hassett appeared in the Irish Times on the 4th of May 2021, in relation to the means testing of Disability Allowance Payments. Full article can be found here.

UNCRPD Training 24th April

Following our recent consultation events and as we see our membership grow DWI plans to host more training and events.

We will get started with an introduction to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Saturday 24th April from 12 – 2pm via Zoom.

The session will be a great chance to get to know more about the CRPD and how it works. We will be using the Convention more as a tool to fight for our rights.

The training will be ran by DWI’ers Cliona and Maria. The training will be suitable for those with no, little or even some knowledge of the CRPD.

The training is open to all members OR people who would be eligible to be members.

To register email your details, access needs (and what you want to learn most) to disabledwomenireland@gmail.com by Monday the 19th.

This is a great way to get involved with DWI, and to learn more about disability rights!!

Annual General Meeting Update

On the 21st of November 2020, Disabled Women Ireland (DWI) held it’s first annual AGM.

At this meeting, which was held online due to government guidelines in light of COVID-19, our constitution was passed, and our board members were elected.

Our current board members are:

Co-directors: Maria Ní Fhlatharta and Amy Hassett

Secretary: Nem Kearns

Treasurer: Roisin Dermody

These board members will sit alongside representatives of each of our working groups on the steering committee of DWI.

We are currently in the process of setting up our working groups. If you are interested in joining our working groups, or would like more information, please email disabledwomenireland@gmail.com (or message us on Facebook or Twitter). Previous experience is not required!

Event: Building the Disabled Feminist Movement

We are very excited for the year ahead, and are starting off with a bang. 

We are having a meeting on Building the Disabled feminist movement in Dublin on the 26th of January from one until four.

The meeting will have a panel discussion on Disability and Feminism (with some amazing speakers), and a workshop to determine where we go from here!

An AGM will also take place on the day, so it's a great chance to get more involved!

Dogpatch Labs are generously hosting us; in their fantastic centre in The CHQ Building on  Custom House Quay in Dublin. Directions are below. 

If you haven't registered yet you can fill out the form here:

You can also email your information and access needs to disabledwomenireland@gmail.com

We will send out more information closer to the event, we are committed to meeting everyones access needs. We will also be providing teleconferencing facilities for those who can't attend in person. 

Letter in the Times

A letter signed by us and a number of fantastic disability rights activists appeared in the Irish Times; full text bellow:

Disability and Abortion:

Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 00:14

Sir, – We are a group of disabled people and disability rights advocates who strongly reject calls for a proposed ban on “selective abortions” (November 7th). We believe these calls are a blatant attempt to dilute the reproductive freedoms achieved in the recent referendum. We call for a law that is based on medical best practice and grounded in evidence. Outlawing abortion on the grounds of “disability” does not meet those standards. Most of all, we are tired of being pushed into this debate. We are tired of being used as props to further an anti-autonomy cause.

As disabled people, advocates, and parents of children with disabilities, we fully reject the inclusion of disability as a grounds for termination. The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has warned states to avoid enshrining into law a specific disability exemption as such laws devalue the lives of people with disabilities. However, the committee has also clearly supported the right to access safe and legal abortion. Our laws must not promote disability rights at the expense of the human rights and well-being of women and pregnant people. We recognise that pregnant people, whether disabled or not, must be given the freedom to make informed choices.

Informed choice includes access to information. In some cases, that will include access to prenatal tests. The barriers to obtaining screening and diagnostic tests within the 12 week window has been well established. Most diagnostic tests take place after 15 or 19 weeks. We accept that prenatal screening is available privately from 9 weeks, but note that these are only indicative tests which need to be confirmed with further testing in order to give a full medical picture and signpost possible treatments and life-saving interventions. Currently early screening is not available to public patients, is expensive, and takes up to two weeks to return results. It is therefore highly unlikely that women will seek to terminate pregnancies for reasons of disability within the first 12 weeks. Given this, it makes no sense to impose any restrictions on abortion based on disability.

Suggesting that the introduction of access to abortion in Ireland will suddenly lead to a spike in termination on disability grounds ignores the substance of the legislative proposals and ignores the existence of foreign abortion care providers who have been assisting women in Ireland for decades. It is also grossly insulting to existing disabled people and their families in the assumptions such claims make about the value of their lives. Rather than attempting to restrict rights, we advocate for evidence-based, non-directive counselling and the integration of abortion care into a health system that offers real supports regardless of the care path chosen.

We believe that social and financial support to disabled people and their parents is the strongest way to deal with concerns for disability rights. Recognising the full extent of disabled people’s rights from infancy to old age – to education, to early childhood support, to personal assistance – will make meaningful changes to the quality of disabled people’s everyday lives. Restrictions on abortion will only place further restrictions on the reproductive rights and freedoms of people with disabilities.

We concur with the recent joint statement by the CRPD and Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women which states that: “The Committees recall that gender equality and disability rights are mutually reinforcing concepts and States parties should guarantee the human rights of all women, including women with disabilities. As such, States parties have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of women, including women with disabilities, in relation to their sexual and reproductive health and rights. … Access to safe and legal abortion, as well as related services and information are essential aspects of women’s reproductive health and a prerequisite for safeguarding their human rights to life, health, equality before the law and equal protection of the law, non-discrimination, information, privacy, bodily integrity and freedom from torture and ill treatment.”

Finally, we ask those who are sincerely concerned about disability rights to look to the actual issues facing disabled people in this legislation – access to care on an equal basis to everyone else, provision for accessible information, self-determination, autonomy and consent. We propose that if anyone is interested in the issues surrounding abortion and disability they see the joint disability submission co-authored by groups including Disabled Women Ireland, Inclusion Ireland, CDLP, Disabled People for Choice, Amnesty and others. – Yours, etc,

MARIA NÍ­FHLATHARTA,

Disabled Women Ireland, Bearna, Galway;

MICHELLE MANNING,

Disabled Women Ireland,

Limerick;

EVIE NEVIN,

Disabled People

for Choice,

Cork;

Louise Bruton, Disabled woman and disability activist, Dublin; Róisín Hackett, Student activist, Dublin; Catherine Colbert, Dundalk For Change; Sinéad Carroll, Blackrock, Co Dublin; Eleanor Walsh, Disabled woman and advocate, Dublin; Claire Hendrick, Disabled Women Ireland, Finglas, Dublin; Muireann O’Sullivan, Disability Rights Officer, NUIGSU; Siobhán Cawley, Disabled Women Ireland, Galway; Amy Hassett, Disabled Women Ireland, Co Wexford; Alannah O’Neill Murray, Disabled Women Ireland, Virginia, Co Cavan; Niamh Ní Hoireabhaird, Disabled Women Ireland, Dublin, Suzy Byrne, Disability Rights Campaigner, Dublin; Caroline McGrotty, Deaf Woman; Aoife Gray, UCD for Choice; Maria Pileidi, Blind Woman, Abortion Rights Campaign, Dublin; Gillian Kearns, Waterford; Mary T Cahill Kennedy, Dublin; Declan Meenagh, Labour Disability, Cabra, Dublin; Ferdia Mac Aonghusa, Disabled writer Dublin; Breanainn Quinn, Dundalk, Co Louth; Eléana Ní­ Mhurchú, Disabled socialist activist, Dublin; Fiona Conlon, Student and Disabled Women Ireland member, Oughterard, Co Galway; Úna Carroll UCD Students’ Union Disability Rights Campaign Coordinator; Joanne Chester, Deaf Community Together for Yes /National Deaf Women of Ireland; Micheál Kelliher, Deaf activist with Deaf Community Together for Yes and Independents4Change, Dublin; Aidan McArdle, Deaf Community for Yes; Carmel Duggan, Deaf Community Together for Yes, Dublin; Teresa Lynch, Chairperson of National Deaf Women of Ireland; Grainne Meehan, Deaf Community Together for Yes; Ronan Lowry, Deaf Community Together for Yes, Dublin West; Carly Bailey, Disabled Woman Ireland, Social Democrats Dublin South West; Róisín Power Hackett, Artist and Curator, Co Waterford; Ciara and Páidí Marrinan, Disabled Person and Carer, Greystones, Co Wicklow; Nem Kearns, Disabled Women Ireland; Orla Russell-Conway, Disabled woman, artist, campaigner for Together For Yes; Kylie Noble, Disability Rights Activist, London (formerly of Co Fermanagh); Samantha Kenny, Parent of children with disabilities, Athy, Co Kildare; Emma Burns, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, Parent of child with disabilities/doctoral researcher, Centre for Disability Law & Policy, NUI Galway; Ruaidhrí­ Mulveen, Galway; Simon Byrne, Carer, Co Louth; Natasha Lambert, Carer, Dundalk, Co Louth; Sharon McDaid, Parent of a young adult with autism and complex needs, Autism services professional and disability rights activist, Belfast.

Cross Disability Submission on Abortion

A number of disability rights organizations recently came together to identify the barriers facing disabled women in the proposed abortion legislation.

The Full text can be found on Inclusion Irelands website here:

http://www.inclusionireland.ie/sites/default/files/attach/basic-page/1651/submission-doh-health-regulation-termination-pregnancy-bill-2018.pdf