An Evening With Faith Healers

On Wednesday I'll be recording my fourth appearance on Premier Christian Radio's 'Unbelievable' show. If you like Christian and non Christian debate I recommend you check out their archive. The host, Justin Brierley, makes an excellent moderator and always ensures both sides get fair hearing.

My last two shows were on miracles. After they aired a faith healer called David contacted the host and offered to take me on an evening of healing on the streets of Dublin. I was reticent - David is based in the Middle East and if nothing else I did not want him to incur the financial expense of such a journey. I think we left it as something along the lines of 'only if you happen to be here'.

Time passed and David contacted me with dates of his planned visit to Ireland. By happy coincidence we later discovered that one of his Irish cohorts knows my brother in law. We agreed to meet, spent an evening in Dublin city centre, and got on rather well.

That was perhaps seven months ago. At the time Justin asked me if I'd like to go back on his show to discuss the experience and if I'm honest I ducked the request. I liked, indeed admired David, and his ministry didn't raise any flags normally associated with faith healers. He does not accept remuneration, does not seek fame or recognition, avoids those with obvious serious ailments lest he causes offence, and seems to genuinely brighten the days of those he encounters. I felt my choice was between arguing with a likeable fellow with heartfelt intentions or taking a very soft approach and inadvertently endorsing faith healers who have a negative impact on society.

Recently Justin asked again. David seemed game, I had a day off around the time and I thought why not. This post is as much my effort to collect my thoughts and give David fair warning of points I'll raise as anything else. Given the gap in time I'm sure our recollections will differ in places, any lapses on my part are unintentional. Given how long and unwieldy this post has become I'll only discuss the first few encounters.

A Raised Eyebrow to PledgeProLife.com

Those unduly curious as to the views of 'cool gal[s] from Oregon' who also consider themselves 'proud Roman Catholic conservative[s]' can do worse than to take to Twitter, where they will likely come across the below caps lock enthusiast who describes herself as one of many "AMERICANS FOR AN ABORTION-FREE IRELAND!"

Original tweet here, assuming not deleted. Her enthusiasm for confining Irish abortions to home abortion kits or England is expressed by her promotion of Youth Defence's PledgeProLife.com. Youth Defence describes this site as representative of "80,000 voters [sic] who will never vote Fine Gael again". Yet I could find no evidence that this Oregon based conservative has been a member of said party, nor was I able to find a townland called Oregon in any traditional Fine Gael voting county.

This Is What An Irish Woman Looks Like

As a relatively young, straight, white, cis male I'm somewhat immune to street harassment, and from this position I found myself blithely unaware of its occurrence in Ireland.

I thought we were doing fairly well. I recall a conversation with a substitute teacher who'd broken up a fight between a Cork born child of Nigerian parents and some classmates from his new Dublin school. It seems it had kicked off when they referred to him as 'a bogger'. I don't encourage playground fights, of course, but we both thought it a positive that it hadn't occurred to them to insult him based on the colour of his skin - they just hadn't seen it as a distinction.

I lost my naiveté when I read Úna-Minh Caomhánach's account of being spat on and racially abused. Thankfully the online response was overwhelmingly supportive, but sadly it did include those who said she should go back to her own country, or write about something important.

To those I say this is her own country, and the only acceptable number of people being publicly spat on is zero.

Perhaps the image below will help clarify. It's a picture of Úna, made up of the profile pictures of her thousands of followers who recognise her nationality. First, here's a zoomed in shot of her eye:

And this is the full picture:

Click it for a larger, zoomable version. If you're having trouble zooming try this link. Naturally, Úna is welcome to republish the image. Image prepared using http://www.mazaika.com/, and some scripts I used to download Twitter profile pics. Great app!

Guest Post: I Had An Abortion

I've made a lot of great new friends since starting this blog, and I've had the opportunity to interact with folk who I wouldn't normally expect to spend time with. It's been an interesting journey. What I've also found is that having some involvement in pro choice activism has changed my relationship with those I already knew.

I recently learnt that, years ago, a friend had had an abortion.

It's something she'd rather keep anonymous, but I felt glad that in some small way I could help give her a way to talk openly about her experience.

I take two things from this. First, I'm glad that being openly pro choice means my friends feel comfortable talking to me about their experiences. Second, I regret she worried people might judge her. If you're pro choice, please let your friends know. They might need someone to talk to. But enough of me. Here was my friend's experience:

Like a lot of young, Irish people I set off after college seeking excitement abroad. And I got it – in abundance. I lived a fantastic few years working and travelling. I met a lovely guy; we were young and really fell for each other.

Then disaster struck. I confided in a friend that I didn’t feel myself and she suggested that I might be pregnant. That and a sick day from work worried me enough to buy a test. It was positive. I was 25, and this wasn’t part of the plan for my boyfriend, or for me.

Youth Defence Blog Post Review: Discussing Disability

"I’d tell you I love[sic], but then I’d have to kill you" This mangled attempt to reproduce the title of one of the author's "favourite spy books" may have slithered past Youth Defence's editor. Or perhaps it was shown mercy - given the inexhaustible supply of errors that constitute the remainder of this blog post a mere discarding of the sixth word of the title (the word 'you') may have been allowed stay to better lower the expectations of its unfortunate readers.

I assume of course that Críostíona speaks of that well known classic, I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I 'd Have To Kill You by Ally Carter. I'm assured it's popular with both pre teens and young adults alike. Of course, perhaps I err. It rests not outside the realms of possibility that Youth Defence members have access to works that encourage lethal responses to admissions of eros, as suggested by the offered title. Still, the former seems the most charitable reading so I'll progress with the assumption that Críostíona intended to commence her piece with a reference to a teenager who lies to most people she meets in the protection of a secret mission. (For those unduly troubled by excess free time the plot summary is here.)

What mission does Críostíona execute in this blog post? We discover by examining the first sentence to follow a rather hamfisted link with aforementioned book title:

Under the (American) Influence

It's always a pleasure to be offered a guest post. Often in the past I've taken the opportunity to give voice to someone who holds a different viewpoint to mine, and I've had fine articles from Christian and Muslim bloggers. In this instance, however, Kath O'Meara and I have little on which to disagree.

She writes from the perspective of an American expatriate living in Ireland and has dug up some fascinating information on our friends across the water. It's great to have such a succinct overview of the situation on file and it makes me realise that much of my output assumes prior knowledge of the Irish situation. My thanks to Kath for this. Do tweet her your appreciation on @KathOMeara. If you enjoy her writing you should check out her blog.

Do enjoy.

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As an American and long-term resident in Ireland (gratefully and by choice), I would like to state for the record:  

I am sorry.   

I am sorry a bunch of arrogant Yanks think they know better than the people of Ireland and have the right to influence Irish society.   

I am sorry that these religious fundamentalists are sticking their noses (and wallets) into the Irish question on abortion and sending money to be used on questionable publicity including billboards ,leaflets and posters.

I am sorry about the illegal robocalls, which originated in the US. 

When I first heard that far-right anti-choice groups in Ireland were being shored up with American dollars the first thought in my mind was "Oh man, I thought I got away from you people!" You see for me, one of the perks about living in Ireland is that I am thousands of miles away from the bible thumping I-know-better-than-you hell and brimstone fundies who can’t seem to stop themselves from trying to control a woman’s right to bodily integrity. A strategy which has not stopped although safe and legal abortions are now available in the US via the landmark Supreme Court case ofRoe v. Wade.

Who's Using Home Abortion Pills?

In 2009, the Irish Medicines Board seized 1,216 abortion pills destined for Irish addresses. This is a significant increase on the 2008 total of 48, though this may well be a result of improved detection rates rather than an increase in demand. No customs office is infallible and no prohibition is complete; it would be farcical to state that these represent the sum total of all abortifacients posted to our shores.

It is now 2013, and groups such as Women on Web no longer ship home abortion kits to addresses in the Republic of Ireland. Instead they suggest identifying a suitable address in Northern Ireland for delivery, requiring that their customer make a trip to collect. Customs interceptions have decreased as a result: they seized 671 in in 2010 and 635 in 2011. Does this mean that women are no longer performing abortions alone, isolated, and with a threat of prison sentence should they dare seek medical help?

I used Google trends to chart the popularity of searches for 'abortion pill' in England, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland:


As a nation we're consistently more likely to be searching for information on abortion pills than are the citizens of Scotland and England. Northern Ireland spikes from highs to lows, a function of its lower population more so than rapid cultural change. And the point that must be emphasized is that increased customs seizures have not reduced this desire for knowledge. If anything it has grown.

On the Marriage of Iona and Twitter

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In the past David Quinn has referred to me as hilarious and on the fourth of February he once more favoured me with endorsement by seeking to base a blog post entirely on data gleaned from Twitter. Those of you new to this blog will discover, as you delight in my past episodes, that this is something of a forté of mine.

Quinn's tentative steps towards imitating my methods are quite endearing. They consist mainly of copying and pasting tweets. He is but one man. Assistance was required, and who better to stand up to this momentous data gathering task than @IrelandStandUp? Regular readers will recall that they have some experience in the intricacies of Twitter automation, almost an eighth of their followers being paid for fakes. Their qualifications are further bolstered by direct experience with abusive tweets - they enjoyed tweeting faked pictures of abortions and strange references to demons, battles and snares of the devil during pro choice gatherings. (They've had the good sense to delete many of these tweets.)

Quinn's blog post was timed as a response to the Late Late show's discussion on marriage equality. Lacking any stronger point or argument of substance he opted to take issue with language used by viewers via Twitter. His upstanding companion and he compiled utterances deemed offensive and crafted from them a "river of bile", a cliché which will hopefully not impinge on his writing career.

The Pro Life Atheist Guest Post

I'd like to thank David for writing the below. Like many of my past guest posts it's fair to say we disagree but  there's little point in blogging if you're not going to listen to those of differing opinions and as an atheist opposed to abortion his voice is one not often heard in the debate.

I requested this guest post through a rather unusual method. I'd examined the Twitter account of @ProLifeAtheists and found that most of their followers were Catholic. While I still consider @ProLifeAtheists a poor example for those seeking to demonstrate diversity among those opposed to abortion, it was never my intention to imply that being an atheist and not being pro choice were mutually exclusive. I'm glad that David has been willing to give of his time to share his thinking.

He's indicated that he'll be happy to respond to comments below as time allows. I know that he's a busy chap and appreciate any time he can give.

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I was asked to put some of my thoughts on paper because I happen to be an atheist who happens to be ‘pro-life’. I was asked to explain ‘why I'm an atheist’ and to also outline my feelings on abortion.

Well, I was born to Catholic parents. I was educated in a Catholic environment, and I would say that my present ‘values’ would be Christian influenced. But who was Christ? Well at this stage, to me, he was a man who lived a few thousand years ago who had some pretty enlightened ideas on how people should live with each other, ideas which, I think, have much in common with most other religions/social philosophies of the world. To me, Jesus was a man with ideas, and he wasn't the first or last person in history to have been persecuted for proclaiming unconventional or unfashionable ideas. From around the age of 16 I finally decided to defy my parents by no longer routinely going to mass with with them on Sundays, cos I simply did not believe in the whole thing. As for me, ‘agnostic’ may have been what I was as I started thinking for myself as a teenager. But at this stage of my life, when I think on it, I realise that I have been an atheist for quite some time. It actually feels odd to me to realise, that if I were to be pigeon-holed, it would be into that little box marked ‘ atheist’. It’s not something I dwell on too much, and its not like I remind myself every Sunday that I'm an atheist by attending some atheist church!! And I don’t belong to any kind of atheist club or anything like that. I'm a bit surprised at the notion some people seem to have, that being an atheist can’t be compatible with being anti-abortion, and that folks might think I'm just pretending not to be some kind of praying church-going bible-bashing ultra-Catholic, disguising myself as an atheist just to try to be cool.

Pro Life Campaign and Preferences for Political Parties

Photo by Andrew Flood
 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Creative Commons

Much noise is made of a vast, anti abortion groundswell against Fine Gael from former ardent supporters. These thronging masses, we're told, are best characterised by their support of the ostensibly Irish group @ProLifeCampaign.

If only there were some way to gauge the following of a specific Twitter account. Perhaps through some sort of programming or scripting language. In a manner that might, say, output the relevant information in human readable format, and suggest which politicians were favoured.

My first check was to pull details of the followers of @FineGaelToday and compare with that of @ProLifeCampaign. There was a 2.2% crossover. Is this an adequate counter to @ProLifeCampaign's claims? Perhaps not. Some Fine Gael tweeps may only follow their local TDs. It's conceivable that some of them would follow no Fine Gael accounts, though over @ProLifeCampaign's 5,721 followers I would not expect that condition to be exclusively expressed.

So I checked every account followed by more than five of @ProLifeCampaign's followers.

When I did I found that the twelfth most popular account followed by @ProLifeCampaign's followers is, indeed, a politician. A man who celebrates his Catholic faith, is considered right wing, represents a major party and is proud of his Irish heritage. I speak of course of failed Republican candidate for vice president Paul Ryan.

Perhaps this is an unfair cheap shot - Paul Ryan is not the most popular politician on this list. For that we must move up the rankings to examine the man who occupies fourth slot, a Mr Mitt Romney. Despite an exhaustive search of the Fine Gael website I was unable to ascertain which constituency he represented. Perhaps he is new? Do let me know in the comments.

Why Am I Pro Choice?

I promised in an earlier post to provide some positive arguments for the pro choice position. It won't be possible to cover all cases and scenarios in one sitting, but allow me to make a start. This change of material may be spectacularly ill-judged. I have something of a niche in Twitter analysis and (dare I say it) investigative research, undoubtedly the primary draw to this corner of the internet, and switching to an area in which I hold no special skill may lose me a follower or two.

Do stick around though. I have something special planned for the end of the week involving a considerable number of pie charts.

What Is Pro Choice?

To my mind the population is divided into those who feel a woman's reproductive cycle should be governed by society, and those who feel that individuals of the female persuasion are best placed to make decisions involving their own bodies. I consider the latter pro choice, and the former anti choice. It is only fair to remark that the anti choice grouping contains subgroups that would likely violently oppose each other. Supporters of China's one child policy with its attendant forced abortions clearly favour state control of wombs. Closer to home but further back in time, those who wished to restrict child benefit payments for third and subsequent children of Northern Irish parents mixed an urge to influence women's reproductive wishes with their anti-Catholic bias. Societies that pressure women to have abortions or commit infanticide until they are pregnant with a male are similarly an anathema to the pro choice position. They belong rightly on the side of those who judge reproduction unsuitable for a woman to govern without outside intervention.

Caroline Simons and the Mobile Death Squads

Absent a commitment to fact checking or citing sources, many anti choice groups in Ireland are freed to produce prodigious verbiage. Lacking the dollars to employ staff we pro choice bloggers must focus our spare time and efforts on a select few; sadly, many of their contributions pass us by unchallenged.

It was with regret that I chose to overlook a blog post on the Netherlands by Caroline Simons. In an effort to accommodate those with a conscientious objection to performing euthanasia, travelling doctors fill the gap. This desire to respect the beliefs of those with a religious or other objection to helping others end their lives with dignity put Caroline Simons in mind of mobile death squads.

That this description and accompanying questionable figures has gone thus far unrebuked left me saddened. It was therefore with some delight that I received an e-mail from Graeme Lawton (pictured). He's a British expatriate, and describes himself as "living in the Netherlands for the past 21 years, married to a Dutch national and immersed in the culture and a follower of religion based politics and discourse." His combination of local knowledge and a superior commitment to research enables him to counteract many of the statements offered.

But I go on too long. Do enjoy Graeme's article.

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I've been following Geoff for a while having seen his word cloud on Stephen Law's blogsite (whom I admire as a philosopher).  I really like the demographic analysis of the clouds and as I have read his articles, I am impressed with his courteous manner and insight.  Consequently, I have been following what the main protagonists have been saying in the Irish debate of abortion laws.  I don't want to stick my oar in there to be honest.  It's a matter for the Irish people and as Geoff has highlighted, religious lobbying seems to be taking place from within America in order to affect the outcome of the debate.  I wouldn't want to be part of that.

But my interest lead to me wondering who Caroline Simons was and what was all the fuss about some video in which she denied appearing.  I "Googled" her and found her blogsite.  I was immediately impressed with a quote placed on the homepage:

‘The law doth punish man or woman
That steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose
That steals the common from the goose.‘                                                                                              

I like that a lot.  In the current climate of banking scandals, one can appreciate the sentiments in this delightful ditty.

I navigated to the page "About Caroline" but found nothing at all saying what she does or stands for. I did notice in the Google results that she is a solicitor. (That impressed me.  I began to think that here was someone who knew the importance of fairness, honesty and representation). Her FAQ page was also bereft of information.  So I clicked on the Blog title and scanned the article headings that appeared.  Quickly, the title "‘Quietus’ in Holland - Mobile Death Squads" caught my eye.  The reason for this is the fact that I live and work for some time now, in the Netherlands (I am British (English)).  Mobile Death Squads?  In the Netherlands?  My word!  I was astonished.  The title itself conjured up images of jack-booted, leather-clad thugs marching around and drowning the elderly in buckets of water.  I didn't know what Quietus was nor was I at all aware of what Mobile Death Squads had to do with the Netherlands.  Did it perhaps relate to the occupation years of 1940 - 45?

So, with some trepidation and lurid interest, I began to read the article.

Who Is More Reasonable?

It's often hard to have a dispassionate conversation about legislating on X, and one could be forgiven for thinking that those against abortion rights in Ireland have chosen to capitalise on this. The language used is selected for its ability to elicit an emotional response - for fetus they say unborn child, for blastocyst they say person with potential, and to describe the debate we're currently almost having they use the term literal tsunami of death. Their choice of images also falls foul of this criticism - be it faked pictures of late-term abortions or smiling, cherub-like babies the appeal to emotion is obvious.

True, facts are used, but more often than not they're flat out wrong. Pro Life Campaign's most recent video culminates in an impassioned speech saying that Ireland is the world leader in maternal healthcare. Now I see no need to rest on such laurels and avoid providing doctors with the legal clarity needed to perform lifesaving operations, but a more significant counterargument is that their statement is untrue. We are not the world leader in maternal healthcare, a fact that can hardly have escaped those behind Pro Life Campaign, and it's hard to take them seriously when such gross inaccuracies are present. It would be like their chairperson forgetting they were in a video with a group that promotes gay conversion 'therapy' while falsely associating vaccinations and autism.

These groups tend to say they represent the majority opinion in Ireland despite 64% of Irish people favouring legislation on X. It's also instructive to note that their supporters on Twitter seem overwhelmingly to be American Republicans, not to my mind a group that should have significant representation in Irish affairs.

Inaccuracies and misstatements aside, is there a downside to leaning on emotional argument? I think there is.

Tax Breaks, Vaccine Denial and Irish Pro Lifers

It's a time of hardship for a lot of us. Tax is up, the carer's allowance has been decreased and most of us are making do with less. Still, it comes as small consolation to remember that as a nation we provide tax breaks for many worthy charities who do important, vital work. However, amongst the dedicated, effective and admirable groups there are a few interlopers perhaps undeserving of tax payers' assistance.

I've mentioned before that the Iona Institute is freed from the shackles of many tax obligations. You can see their company, Lolek Limited, is listed on the Revenue's list of authorised charities. (Compare the charity number there to that listed on Iona's website.) I pop back to this Revenue list from time to time when investigating various groups and have found many names gratifyingly absent. I should also add that I bear the Revenue no ill will in this matter; they merely enforce the rules and are not the body who decided the criteria for charitable status. (Late addendum: this means donors can either write off some of their tax bill against the donation, or get the Revenue to add to their donation, depending on their tax status.)

Recently a video made by the American group EWTN has been excitedly shared through Facebook and Twitter. (Bebo was not checked.) It was designed to solicit prayers and donations for Irish anti abortion groups. Perhaps surprisingly, it has been promoted most heavily by those of us on the pro choice side, largely due to one ridiculous hat:

Live Action, Youth Defence, and the Return to the Magdalene Laundries

"... back in the olden days of yore, when there was a standard – and when if you got caught having sex before marriage, you would get your butt beat and get sent off to Ye Olde Forbidding Nunnery & School For Wayward Girls – there were a lot fewer teenagers having sex." -Kristen Walker Hatten, liveactionnews.org

I greeted news that Youth Defence is now open about their US-based financing with mixed delight. True, the myth that they are the voice of the silent Irish majority can only be damaged by this approach. But I worry that their true colours may show more clearly when they drop the pretense of being strangers to the worst excesses of anti abortion activism in the USA.

Take the opening quote. It hankers back to a simpler time, where Magdalene laundries prevented abortions by incarcerating those women who dared be raped, judged lascivious by village elders, or - horror of horrors - choose their sex partners without church approval.

@ProLifeAtheists and the Damascene Conversion

"By sticking steadfastly to religious arguments, the prochoice advocates who organised this march have shown they are out of touch with the modern debate – a debate which includes people of all faiths and no faith. Just look at @secularprolife, @prolifeatheists and many others for examples." - Cora Sherlock, Deputy Chair of ProLifeCampaign.ie, via thejournal.ie 

"The Church is entitled to contribute just like any other group in society but the fact remains that abortion concerns human rights, not religion. The Journal readers can see this from groups like @secularprolife, @ProLifeAtheists, PLAGAL and of course the writings of secularists Nat Hentoff and the late Christopher Hitchens." - Cora Sherlock, Deputy Chair of ProLifeCampaign.ie, via thejournal.ie

Atheism is the absence of belief in gods, nothing more, nothing less. Being both an atheist and opposed to legal access to abortion is not an incoherent position, though it would be inconsistent for an atheist to advance a religious argument against abortion.

Still, I was a mite curious about this @ProLifeAtheists group. Who were they? Could they be what I was looking for - a majority Irish group?

Migration Patterns - Why Are @ProLifeCampaign's Followers Mainly American?

Cora Sherlock, deputy chair of the Pro Life Campaign, was kind enough to comment on a recent post where I discussed the organisation's Twitter stats. I encourage you to read both, but for those who can't resist skimming I'll summarise by saying that only ten per cent of this Irish organisation's followers are Irish, and 70% are based in the United States. I'll quote sections of Cora's response for context below.

Cora didn't specify if she was commenting in an official capacity or not. To my mind it is most charitable to assume her words were in a personal capacity and that is the interpretation I will take unless corrected. I should also add that at present I have no reason to believe that Cora runs the @ProLifeCampaign Twitter account - as such any criticism of the account should not be read as directed at Cora. Indeed I'm grateful to her for interacting; it is not a step taken by any other anti-abortion group I've covered.

I've taken the liberty of assigning headers to what I feel are Cora's main points.

Pro Life Campaign - an end to carrots?

I approach this post with a certain amount of dread. Any time I look at the Twitter statistics of groups opposed to abortion in Ireland I invariably find myself beating a fresh path to the oft visited conclusion: they're mainly American. It grows harder and harder to provide entertainment to those willing to accompany me on this journey.

Finding the poverty of Irish numbers supporting Youth Defence in my initial post of this sort was quite amusing. But as I worked my way through the Life Institute, Ireland Stand Up, David Quinn and Ronan Mullen, seeing each one dominated by either Americans, men, or American men, using my unique method of pulling Twitter stats began to become more of a chore.

So, this will be my last check of Twitter geography of anti abortion groups in Ireland. My reasoning is simple - I'm out of material. The only two left are the Life Institute (stats given to the excellent Red Lemonader, looking forward to reading her take) and the Pro Life Campaign, which ran last night.

We Are All Savita

The title of this blog post is not original. I saw it on a placard when I marched on Saturday. And the constituent parts of the image below are also not my work - they're the profile pictures of the Twitter followers of @ProudProChoice and @ChoiceIreland. Later, based on welcomed feedback in the comments section I added in 583 profile pictures from the march for Savita Facebook event. (Technical reasons prevent me from viewing more.)

It's a collaborative effort. I know many who grieve are not represented below; unfortunately there's no way for me to get images of everyone. It's flawed and imperfect, but in some small way it shows me that when we work together we can remember someone beautiful.

Now let's remember her through legislation.

Update December 5th, 2012: many more have supported or attended marches calling for legislation on the X case. I've rerun the procedure and produced an updated image - the increased number of supporters has resulted in a much sharper image:

Do Youth Defence Really Care About Rape Survivors?

Some time ago I wrote a piece on the typical Youth Defence follower. It was intended to be lighthearted: I listed the various right-wing American personalities and groups followed and wondered aloud why a supposedly Irish organisation would find their members expressing such interest. As my source material I gave a list of other groups followed by those who deem Youth Defence of interest.

As a closing comment I mentioned that there were no Irish charities on the list. (There’s one US-based charity.) Shortly afterwards I was contacted by a new friend who asked if I could get her some more details. The script I used to pool the accounts followed by Youth Defence followers had a cut-off of 11 – it was conceivable that ten Youth Defence fans supported a specific Irish charity. Nick Beard wanted to know how many, if any, supported charities that work with rape survivors.

I’d like to frame the discussion by opening with a quote from prolifeinfo.ie, a front organisation based in the same building and using the same staff as Youth Defence:

“Victims need real support not a quick-fix solution like abortion. Rape is a terrible crime against women. Victims need our support and sympathy. We should be doing a great deal more to protect and help them.” -link

Do they live by this maxim?