THE Irish trade union movement has a long and storied history in the defence and implementation of women’s rights.

Trade unionism has never just been about securing a decent wage or better conditions, but rather about improving circumstance for all workers in all regards of life. This includes the fight for childcare, access to contraceptives, as well as campaigning for access to abortion care. Any barrier placed on workers that denies them full social, economic and political access is one that trade unions are obliged to tear down.

The eighth amendment is one of these barriers. This amendment equates the life of mother and foetus as equal in all circumstances. It was written into the Irish constitution in 1983 after a referendum to ensure abortion could never become legal in Ireland. The push for access to abortion to become a constitutional matter came from right-wing so-called “pro-life” groups in fear that the right to privacy, which was used to introduce accessible contraception in 1973, could be extended to abortion.

Although this amendment has been challenged several times, it has never been repealed. However, many tiny steps have been made to attempt to placate the population of the country, each time on the back of a woman or girl whose life has been thrown into chaos or sacrificed as a result.

The most historic of these steps is the X case. A young girl, pregnant as a result of rape, was denied the right to travel to Britain for an abortion. It spurred another referendum in 1992 and the 13th and 14th amendments were added to the constitution. These ensure the right to access information on and travel for abortion. That being said, this right to travel only extends to Irish citizens, and the 14th amendment didn’t undo the banning of publications on abortion.

In 2013 the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act was signed, allowing for abortion where pregnancy endangers a woman’s life, including through a risk of suicide. This act only came about after another woman, Savita Halappanavar, died of maternal septicaemia after being denied an abortion during her miscarriage. The reason she was denied: a foetal heartbeat.

Savita requested an abortion several times since her miscarrying and the death of her child were inevitable. She was not the first woman to die in such circumstances but her husband took her story to the Irish Times and it soon became national news. The country was shocked and outraged.

Each of these steps is progress but the costs are always too high and the victories too little while an arcane piece of legislation like the eighth amendment remain in place.

So what role do trade unions play?

The Trade Union Campaign to Repeal the eighth Amendment is continuing the tradition of fighting for workers’ and women’s rights.

The campaign believes that trade unionism has a significant role to play in securing repeal following from the historic role of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and Dublin Council of Trade Unions in the 1983 anti-amendment fight. After much work by the activists in the Trade Union Campaign, ICTU has affiliated and been draw once again in to the struggle.

Women make up more than 50 per cent of all trade union members and almost 50 per cent of all workers on the island of Ireland. That is excluding the social reproductive work that many women do. The majority of these women are in low-paid, part-time or precarious jobs.

Figures from our Central Statistics Office show that 50 per cent of working women earn €20,000 or less a year. A common misconception is that many of these women in lower-paid jobs are students or new to the job market — this isn’t the case, and in recent years they are increasingly the main income source for a family.

If one of these women finds herself in the position of a crisis pregnancy, the eighth amendment forces her to travel abroad for routine medical procedure denied to her in Ireland. This can cost anything from €850 to €2,000 (£630-£,1480) and above, and for a low-paid worker this can equate to 10 per cent or more of their annual income. She may also be forced to take unplanned or unpaid leave or arrange childcare — an added cost. Repeal is a workplace issue for these women, it is a trade union issue for these women, and for member-led organisations like trade unions it is an issue on which they need to fight ferociously.

The situation is significantly worse for women with no income — those reliant on social welfare and migrant women.

Migrant women in particular are unable to access abortion as a result of insurmountable travel and legal obstacles, often forcing them to chose between an abortion and asylum. They also face the hardship of accessing funding for travel. 

This means that facing this dilemma will always fall hardest on the poorest. Women with money have choice, women who don’t have children. Repeal of the eighth amendment is a women’s issue, a workers’ issue, but ultimately it is an issue of class.

We have seen the hypocrisy of the amendment exemplified many times over the past 30 years, from the X case to the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar and the shocking treatment of the Y case in 2013 where a young migrant woman, a rape survivor, found herself pregnant. Under the Protection of Life Act, Ms Y had the right to an abortion but was ostensibly kept on the long finger in order to force a C-section. The baby was named Hope by “pro-life” movements. Ms Y was an abstract to them, stripped of all autonomy and reduced to a reproductive vessel for the state.

The eighth amendment is a barrier to progress and an extension of the church control that allowed the Magdalene laundries to exist. It denies women their rights and dignity, further fuelling the shame that this state has for decades heaped on women who may have found themselves in the position of a crisis pregnancy. The eighth amendment is not a moral issue and it has never been about protecting life. It is there to target and punish working-class, poor and migrant women for daring to think they deserve equality and control over their own lives and bodies.

All trade unions members must embrace the demands made by women for an equal society. All women in Ireland deserve to know that their choice, bodily autonomy, economic freedom, health and lives are theirs and theirs alone. And repeal of the eighth amendment is a good step in the direction of achieving this. Next up: free, safe and legal!

• The Trade Union Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment is supported by Unite the Union, Mandate Trade Union, Dublin Council of Trade Unions, Waterford Council of Trade Unions, CWU youth committee, Bray and District Council of Trade Unions and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.