04 August 2009

Anna in Ireland...

Submitted by Anna Donohoe, PPWP Grassroots Organizing Intern

Don’t get your knickers in a twist over sex education” says Ireland’s Sunday Independent columnist Carol Hunt. This is not the attitude I expected before I got here, I must admit. I was imagining a very socially conservative and mostly Catholic society; and therefore I assumed everyone would be tight-lipped and prudish about sex education. Some background: I am in central Ireland visiting my relatives at the moment (all of my father’s family lives here), and that is why I decided to focus on sex ed in Ireland for this blog entry.

I asked two of my cousins about sex education (sex ed is called Relationship and Sexuality Education or RSE here) and what they were taught in school—one said that at his school it’s really up to the teacher’s discretion whether you get a comprehensive curriculum or an embarrassed abstinence-only approach. His sister agreed, saying her class at the same school got much less in-depth information than his. I’ve also been doing online research, and following day-to-day leads such as a television ad campaign.

There are two different TV ads by the same organization geared to teens and young adults that really put birth control in the spotlight—my favorite was aired during prime time on one of the most popular channels a few days ago. The ad starts with a passionate embrace in a fast food restaurant. As the cashier offers the couple their food, she asks “Do you want condoms with that?” Several more intimate scenes are similarly interrupted, then a voiceover says “You have 350 million chances of becoming pregnant after unprotected sex” and ends with the slogan “Nobody else is going to do the thinking for you—www.thinkcontraception.ie” The Think Contraception website is hip, professional, and very informative: male and female contraceptive choices listed separately, reproductive health & STI information, a 10 question quiz, a list of external resources and more. It was encouraging to see the ad on television, and to find out that it came from reliable and helpful source.

Emergency contraception (EC) is also a hot topic here- the Irish Family Planning Association has been working to make EC available over-the-counter for years now, but as yet women in Ireland must go to their doctor or a family planning clinic to get EC. One of the reasons EC is such a contentious issue here is that Ireland is a very anti-abortion country. According to Positive Options Crisis Pregnancy Services, “Abortion is illegal in Ireland except where there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother.” It is however legal for Irish women to travel abroad in order to get abortions (though they will only be told about this option by their doctors under very select circumstances because of the particulars of the abortion law).

I hope to visit the Irish Family Planning Association’s Dublin clinic to do some more digging while I’m here. I’m very glad to have been positively surprised by the attitudes of Irish people towards sex education and contraception; and I wish the IFPA all the best in its battle to get over-the-counter EC!

For more information on sex education and related issues in Ireland go to:

http://www.thinkcontraception.ie/

http://www.ifpa.ie/

http://www.positiveoptions.ie/abortion_and_the_law/

http://www.crisispregnancy.ie/newsletter/newsletterv4_i2.htm