A group of University College Dublin (UCD) students have started a petition calling for the impeachment of their Student Union President Katie Ascough, following the retraction of information on abortion from the college’s Student Union handbook.
Amy Crean, one of the members of the group who started the petition spoke to Trinity News and explained the reasoning behind it: “The petition was started because Ascough has acted undemocratically; she went against the other execs to redact the information from the original handbook, and put her personal politics before the wellbeing of the students she is supposed to represent”.
Crean continued to say: “It’s not about her personal stance but the fact that she has allowed it to interfere with the responsibilities of the job she’s mandated to do. she represents a student body that voted for a pro-choice SU, yet actively has stood in the way of access to vital info, putting our welfare at risk”.
The organisers will start collecting signatures around the UCD campus tomorrow. The group behind the impeachment was also involved in placing abortion information posters around the campus in the recent days.
According to the UCDSU constitution, for a referendum to be held on whether a president should be impeached a petition has to be signed by 3.5% of the union membership.
Some of the content the “Winging it in UCD” handbook, which was published for orientation week, was in breach of the Abortion Information Act of 1995. The handbook contains information about obtaining an abortion safely, and in the retracted version, included price list for different clinics outside Ireland and information about purchasing abortion pills online.The abortion information is the same as what was printed last year; however, this year students were directed towards a specific website to obtain abortion pills.