Women’s reproduction and Rights Women’s Reproduction and Rights An educational manual for women’s community education was originally designed for the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) in 2015 1 Women’s reproduction and Rights Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 5 What is this? .............................................................................................................................. 6 Overall aims of the Programme ................................................................................................. 8 Who is the programme for? ................................................................................................... 8 How long will it take to run the programme? ........................................................................ 8 What does this manual do? .................................................................................................... 8 What will I need to do the workshop? ................................................................................... 9 Why is it just for women? ..................................................................................................... 9 What is feminist community education? ................................................................................. 11 Programme outline sessions 1 to 7. ......................................................................................... 14 Additional guidelines for facilitators ....................................................................................... 15 Creating the environment for dialogic learning ................................................................... 15 Caring for participants ......................................................................................................... 15 Managing unmet literacy needs ........................................................................................... 16 Using handouts ................................................................................................................ 16 Reading out loud .............................................................................................................. 17 What do to if you can’t answer some questions? ................................................................ 17 What if we don’t have enough time to fit everything in? .................................................... 17 Follow-ups ........................................................................................................................... 17 Recommended advance reading for facilitators .................................................................. 18 Session one: Exploring Women’s Reproductive Stories ......................................................... 19 Introductions with help from photographs. ......................................................................... 20 Common Questions in a Group ........................................................................................... 21 HANDOUT - QUESTIONS AND ANXIETIES IN A GROUP ..................................... 24 Sharing an overview of the Programme .................................................................................. 25 Sharing my Reproductive Story .......................................................................................... 26 REFLECTION SHEET –MY REPRODUCTIVE STORY ............................................ 28 Creating a collaborative timeline ............................................................................................. 30 Check out from session one ..................................................................................................... 33 HANDOUT ON SUPPORT SERVICES THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL ........................ 34 Session two: Discussing choice ............................................................................................... 35 Check-in for session two ......................................................................................................... 36 Listening to stories .................................................................................................................. 37 2 Women’s reproduction and Rights Story One - Angela’s story .................................................................................................. 39 Story two - Katie’s story ...................................................................................................... 42 Story three – Laura’s story .................................................................................................. 46 Story four - Carmel’s story .................................................................................................. 49 Story five - Miriam’s story .................................................................................................. 51 Story six – Molly’s story ..................................................................................................... 54 Thinking about a crisis pregnancy ........................................................................................... 57 What choices should women be able to make? ................................................................... 60 Check-out from session two ................................................................................................ 61 Session three: Understanding the Eighth Amendment ............................................................ 62 Check-in for session three. ...................................................................................................... 63 Understanding the Eighth Amendment ................................................................................... 64 HANDOUT 1 - THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT ................................................................ 66 HANDOUT 2 – THE AFTERMATH TO THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT ................... 68 HANDOUT 3 – REASONS TO REPEAL THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT ...................... 70 Check–out session three ...................................................................................................... 74 Session four (optional) Ways of seeing – exploring gender through a feminist analysis ........ 75 The Woman Box.................................................................................................................. 76 HANDOUT- THE MAN BOX BY TONY PORTER ..................................................... 79 Opening discussion on Feminism ........................................................................................ 80 A picture speaks a thousand words, generating discussion through images ....................... 81 HANDOUT 1 IMAGES OF ‘THE IDEAL’ WOMEN .................................................. 82 HANDOUT 2 IMAGES OF ‘THE IDEAL’ WOMEN .................................................. 83 HANDOUT SHOWING OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN ....................................... 84 HANDOUT - WOMEN AND THE MEDIA .................................................................. 85 Introducing photo-voice ...................................................................................................... 86 Check-out session four ............................................................................................................ 88 Session five (optional) Human Rights and reproductive rights ............................................... 89 Check in for session five ..................................................................................................... 90 Women’s experiences across generations ........................................................................... 91 REFLECTION SHEET ON WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES ACROSS GENERATIONS 93 Human needs and human rights .......................................................................................... 94 HANDOUT - WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS .................................................................. 95 My reproductive rights ........................................................................................................ 96 Opening discussion .............................................................................................................. 99 3 Women’s reproduction and Rights Check-out session five ....................................................................................................... 106 Introducing Irish based campaign and support groups (optional) ......................................... 107 Session aim: ....................................................................................................................... 107 Session four/seven: What have we learnt? Looking back- moving forward ........................ 108 Check-in for the final session ................................................................................................ 109 Photo-voice- our images of women (optional follow up from session four) ..................... 111 Review of the programme ................................................................................................. 113 Hopes for the future ........................................................................................................... 116 Group close ........................................................................................................................ 117 Appendix one – About ARC ................................................................................................. 118 APPENDIX two – Suggested