Do you have any questions or concerns? This is a question I've asked quite a few times over the last months while canvasing for the local elections in London. It's a question directed towards undecided voters, a way to see which issues, from Brexit to the state of local bin collections, are the ones they most care about. It's also often the last chance for conversation, a sentence to be squeezed into a gap before the door closes.
The same words carry a different charge when I'm back home in Dublin for the week and doing a small bit of canvassing for Together for Yes; here, I can feel my stomach clench as I ask undecided voters these words. Sometimes, it seems as if the person behind the door clenches as well, "no, no" at the ready, their face hardening, the sliver of space between door and frame soon to disappear. This might be because even now abortion remains a taboo subject for some, a word to be kept at a distance, certainly not a subject to be spoken of in broad daylight with strangers. It could also be because another question lurks underneath – what would help you make up your mind? – with a range of statistics, stories and signs on lampposts ready to be mobilised to do so.
Several people refuse to talk about their vote at all – who are you to ask me about it? – heard in the click of the door closing. It's a fair question. I am acutely aware that, as a gay man who hasn't lived in Ireland for over a decade, my voice shouldn't be at the centre of this conversation. Equally, repealing the Eighth Amendment is not a task that any Irish person can look away from.
It is frustrating to watch other men tell female canvassers that “my vote is none of your business”; part of the problem is that continued inaction has meant that an alphabet of women, from Ms ABC to X, have had their intimate business dragged across courts and papers, while governments fail to spell “justice”. Of course, it’s fair enough for people to keep their vote as a personal matter – just as it’s fair enough for people to want to eat dinner or relax rather than talk to strangers at their door – but perhaps it’s also fair to risk being seen as impolite in an emergency. My hope is that people who don’t want to talk about the referendum recognise that abortion is a personal issue by trusting women to make their own decisions about their lives and bodies.
Other people do have questions and concerns and are happy to discuss the referendum. One concern that I heard several people express was that abortion would be used as contraception, an idea that seems to come from the misogynistic myth that the No campaign has helped to conjure, one where women cannot be trusted and abortion is “on demand”, as if it were a Netflix series. The real women canvassing on doorsteps are well able to puncture this figure of shame and stigma. Abortion isn’t easy, they say; it’s not a form of contraception. Abortion already exists in Ireland; repealing the Eighth means that it will be safer, regulated by doctors, and that people who face crisis pregnancies will have the support they need.
Are these conversations enough to change some people’s minds? I hope so. As a writer, I have some faith in the power of words; as a canvasser, I have to believe that the gap that appears when a door opens might be space enough for change to fit through. Furthermore, there are plenty of powerful words that people have written against the injustices of the Eighth Amendment.
But which leaflet to hand out? The sheet with testimonials from doctors about the unacceptable risks that the amendment poses to women’s healthcare? The newspaper that makes the strong case for abortion as an issue of economic equality, with those most vulnerable disproportionately affected by crisis pregnancies and unable to afford travel abroad? The pamphlet that includes heartbreaking stories from some of women in Ireland who’ve had to travel abroad to receive the healthcare they needed? Faced with a young father who says he hasn’t decided how to vote – no, he doesn’t have any concerns he wants to talk about and bye, his hand on the door says – my fellow canvasser hands him a selection of leaflets, hoping that one of them might contain the right words.
The moment feels especially charged because other gaps – between yes and no votes; between now and the date of the vote – are also closing. I’m heartened by the number or enthusiastic yes voters who open their doors and by the variety of inspiring women I meet while canvassing: women who have been campaigning against the Eighth Amendment since its introduction in the eighties and have spent decades since fighting against it, knocking on doors and marching down streets and watching the inertia of successive governments with sadness and rage; younger women in Repeal jumpers and yes badges who refuse to be shamed or silenced; a 17-year-old school student, who confidently addresses a crowd at a rally and explains that although she’ll miss her chance to vote in the referendum by a few months, she won’t be denied a voice in the campaign.
“If you won’t trust me with a choice, why would you trust me with a baby?” she asks, another sentence to sway an undecided voter, one which I’ll be thinking about on Saturday morning, when I hope that any lingering questions and concerns have been addressed, and the majority of Irish people can trust women to make the best decisions about their lives, by voting a resounding and enthusiastic yes.
- Darragh Martin's debut novel, Future Popes of Ireland, will be published by Fourth Estate in August
