Research Project number 5, the CPA. (The Handmaids Tale)

national | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Thursday June 08, 2006 13:28

by Chris Murray - The unmanageables

'Assessing the Goodness of Fit'

Research project no 6; 'Understanding how Sexually Active Women think about Fertility, Sex and Motherhood'
(Jo murphy -Lawless, Laury Oakes and Clare Brady)

Research Project no 15;' Concealed Pregnancy; A case Study Approach from an Irish Setting' Catherine Conlon.
The CPA was set up by statutory implement in 2001. It is a planning and co-ordinating body
established to formulate and implement a strategy to address the issue of crisis pregnancy thru:

a). A reduction in the number of crisis pregnancies by the provision of
education, advice and contraception. (whoops,tools of the devil there, banned in Poland during the recent holy visit).

b).A reduction in the number of women who opt for abortion by
(listen) offering services and supports which make other options more attractive. (These options , not defined, but possibly include
Glossy magazine covers of smiling celebrities with babies, glossy magazine covers of celebrities who will abstain until their wedding day, attractive consumer options such as a bridal mag and the what to do list for the wedding, the where to go list. A full and explanatory
leaflet on the rhythmn method, a glossy mag full of smiling babies).
Nine months and one day after the honeymoon......

c). The provision of counselling/medical services after crisis pregnancy.

Cura provided one of these 'Positive Options'.

Funding row ongoing for a year now-

The CPA is funded in it's entirety by the Dept of Health and Children.

Its board comprises Olive Braiden (Chair,and Chair of the Art's Council (check out the Arts act 2003).
Peter Finnegan , managing director of Communique intl (google it).
a few social workers, head civil servants from Justice , Equality and Law Reform and one from Education.
Farrell Grant (bright) Spark Consulting provide consultancy (harder to Google, but linked into Ithaca Media, ECM and learn for Good).

On the commission list june 2005; 1. measuring the degree to which funded projects 'fit' with the 3 mandates of the agency.

A commissioned report to 'understand' How Sexually Active Women Think about Fertility, Sex and Motherhood'

This last week has seen the most repressive laws on sexual activity in this country , section 5 of the Criminal Law (sexual Offences)2006:
An answer to a question no-one asked and nothing to do with the Mister A case.

A Gov agency reducing choice in the event of crisis pregnancy.
As Michael himself said " black lies".
There are reports commissioned also on teenage sexual activity.
The CPA is mandated to reduce the number of women who opt for abortion by offering services
and supports which make other options more attractive. ((3) Strategy of CPA)
Does this include reducing the places that young women can go to learn about all their options.
Or by creating a societal scenario wherein a young woman is criminalised for giving
her boyfriend a blow-job, but not for full penetrative sex.
By putting her on the stand to explain her clothing and behaviour the night she was raped
or quite simply by interfering in private choice by isolating her socially . Who mandated the state
to interfere in your sex-life today?

save preference

Comments (4 of 4)

it fell off the frigging page

by chris Murray - the unmanageables

Thu Jun 08, 2006 20:57

Reminds me of the ten green bottles. Now it's ten sex-laws and the breezy balmy summer recess
is calling out to the government and opposition, who will come back in September or October
for a constitutional crisis; "Resign Minister mc Dowell", but why should he?
They all signed onto the script,
One amendment.
Section 5 , an absurdity ,but we will facilitate it through the Dail and Seanad because ,

objection sustained!

by snowflake

Thu Jun 08, 2006 17:08

please enter this info number into the record
+44 (0) 845 300 8090

now let's read the whole article again. & continue the debate & stay "on topic", too much of our national debate has been manipulated, the "crises" of 23/5 to 2/6 did not see a proper discussion of the health, educational, state support of families, socio-economic, cultural or ethnic dimensions of young people and sexual acts, nor did it open a debate on the role society and the state plays in deciding an age of consent, or ensuring the passage from immaturity to maturity serves the wellbeing of individuals and wider society.

http://indymedia.ie/article/76514

Separate Issues.

by chris murray - The Unmanageables

Thu Jun 08, 2006 16:34

CPA is an example of the insidious ability of the offices of the State , (which signed the Church/State indemnity fund, releasing the religious from paying their full share of compensation to victims of Child sexual abuse, which obstructed the work of the Laffoy Commission on Child Abuse, leading to the resignation of Justice Mary Laffoy) to apply neo-liberal policies which are anti-woman to the lives of women, by creating structures which direct our control
over our fertility.

The Laffoy commission on Child sexual abuse was obstructed in its work after complaints of withheld information and lost files on the part of the Dept of Education and Children. The Minister for Education , who accepted her resignation had just taken over from Dr Michael woods , who signed the indemnity fund.

There is not much distance between the mandate of CURA and that of the CPA. The CPA is totally or to use a phrase , much abused last week, funded in toto by the offices of the State. It was incepted by Statutory implement in 2001. its work from 2003-2006 has benefited many people, I am sure. But it is not an NGO. and it doesn't do what it says on the tin.

CPA means Crisis Pregnancy Agency. If you google the site and look at the research documents, the make up of the board and
the consultancy firms which work under the aegis of the CPA you will see that it is an organisation which deals with sexuality and society as much or more so than it does the issue of crisis pregnancy. There are societal problems that have led to these structures being necessary. It is clear that the issue of choice in women's reproductive rights is mitigated for in a political organisation that is funded by the offices of the State.

I should have clarified at the beginning of the piece that it was written in the context of the Criminal Act(sexual offences)2006 legislation wherein the neo-liberal response to a case of sexual violence mitigates against the victims , by creating the absurdity of section 5 of the act. Further to that , in the context of section 5 and the criminalising of young women for all acts other than full penetrative sex and of young boys for under-age consensual sex
has created a scenario wherein government interference in
private expression is an acceptable norm. I wanted to show that
this agency exists and what it does.

The issue of CURA is not one I have investigated, though I do know that they were providing post-abortion counselling in Tralee ten years ago, and I wonder when that changed...

We regect church interference in our private morality but we open ourselves to State interference.
* The passage of the Criminal Law (sexual offences )legislation
unimpeded in the Dail Last week.
*Criminalising young women and men for sexual offences was unimpeded during its passage thru the Dail last week.
Neo-liberal response to the question of a constitutional challenge was buried under the sex law legislation creating a norm for government intereference in matters of personal choice. the same government who obstructed Laffoy and indemified the church for the minimum required compensation for people who suffered greatly under the sexual mores of the Church/state alliance in the past. The dogmatic church is as alive as it was in the era of the Magadalene laundries and we are collusive in re-creating those societal mores which created the problem in the first place.

CURA

by pat c

Thu Jun 08, 2006 13:40

Chris, CURA is an anti choice agency. Part of its service leval agreement with the CPA is that it is supposed to distribute a leaflet which gives the names & details of 12 agencies, including those who will give advice on abortion referral. CURA are refusing to distribute this leaflet.

CURA is reducing the choice available to women.

Upcoming Events

New Events

Other Press

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

The Saker

Public Inquiry

Voltaire Network

Research Project number 5, the CPA. (The Handmaids Tale)

Comments (4 of 4)