Abortion and Nation: The Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland (original) (raw)
Related papers
Narratives of Irishness and the Problem of Abortion: The X Case 1992
Feminist Review, 1998
This paper considers the ways in which discourses of abortion and discourses of national identity were constructed and reproduced through the events of the X case in the Republic of Ireland in 1992. This case involved a state injunction against a 14-year-old rape victim and her parents, to prevent them from obtaining an abortion in Britain. By examining the controversy the case gave rise to in the national press, I will argue that the terms of abortion politics in Ireland shifted from arguments based on rights to arguments centred on national identity, through the questions the X case raised about women's citizenship status, and women's position in relation to the nation and the state. Discourses of national identity and discourses of abortion shifted away from entrenched traditional positions, towards more liberal articulations.
1998
This article asks how Irish abortion law developed to the point of stopping a young pregnant rape victim from travelling abroad to have an abortion in 1992 (Attorney General v. X.). The author argues that this case, which ultimately saw the Irish Supreme Court overturn that decision and recognize the young woman's right to abortion, was the last chapter of the fundamentalist narrative of Irish abortion law. The feminist critique of that law needs to consider its particular fundamentalist aspects in order to clarify the obstacles posed to the struggle for Irish women's reproductive freedom. The author argues that a fundamentalist narrative ordered the post-colonial and patriarchal conditions of Irish society so as to call for the legal recognition of an absolute right to life of the "unborn." The Supreme Court's interpretation of the constitutional right to life of the fetus in three cases during the 1980s is evidence that Irish abortion law was constructed through a fundamentalist narrative until that narrative was rejected in the Supreme Court decision in Attorney General v. X.
European Journalf of Women's Studies, 2021
In March 2018, the Irish government confirmed that a referendum would be held on 25 May, allowing for the Irish public to vote on the legalisation of abortion. The same month, Together for Yesthe national civil society campaign advocating for a 'Yes' vote in the referendumwas launched. This article draws upon findings from 27 in-depth interviews conducted in December 2019 and January 2020 with Irish abortion activists, to explore the moral and emotional construction of abortion within the 'Yes' campaign. This research suggests that the 'Yes' campaign, which secured 66% of the votes cast in the referendum, framed abortion as a negative affective object and constructed the moral permissibility of abortion along rather conservative lines. Data from the first year of abortion provision in the Republic of Ireland reveals that abortion seekers still face huge obstacles in accessing services in the State. The legislation introduced in January 2019 allows abortion on request only until 12 weeks, whilst issues remain in relation to the refusal of care. This article, therefore, concludes that by framing abortion in conservative terms, the pro-choice campaign has not yet succeeded in destigmatising abortion in Irelandan issue now translated into limited legislation and inadequate provision of services.
Ireland’s Abortion Ban: Honour, Shame and the Possibility of a Moral Revolution
This chapter aims to explore Ireland’s long history of struggles over access to legal abortions in the state through this lens, considering whether and to what extent the recent enactment of legislation allowing for pregnancies to be legally ended can be understood as a significant step towards a moral revolution. While the history and politics of these events is well documented (e.g. see Girvin 1993; Hesketh 1990; Hug 1999; Mullally 2005; O'Carroll 1991; O'Reilly 1992; Smyth 1992; Smyth 2005; Smyth 2008), it is worth considering the emotional tensions this honour code has generated, and the ways in which it has eventually resulted in something of a reversal.
Special Issue on Repealing the 8th: Irish Reproductive Activism
Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics
On 26 May 2018, as the results of the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment filtered in and it became clear that 'Yes' had won, what I felt most clearly was an immense sense of relief. Relief that this huge obstacle to reproductive freedom in Ireland was finally about to be removed from the Constitution. For women in Ireland the 8th had felt, for many years like a great big piece of immovable granite, and now it was to be shattered. Along with relief came exhaustion, which after many decades of campaigning for reproductive rights, was and remains among many feminist activists, deep seated. Three years later it is only now that many of those who campaigned for repeal can take stock of what it meant to be part of a thirty-five-year, multi-generational, hard-fought battle. For me personally, of all the feminist and LGBTQ battles I have been engaged with, the campaign to repeal the 8th amendment was by far the toughest. The toll it took on many feminists, over several generations, needs to be acknowledged. It must also be acknowledged, that even as Repeal was a major feminist win, it was but one battle in the long war to gain full reproductive rights for women and pregnant people in Ireland, and indeed, globally. It also has to be said that even when we have a 'win', as in Ireland and Argentina (two majority Catholic countries) most recently, feminist laurels can never rest easy. Time and time again, even when they seem firmly established, abortion rights can be challenged, as is happening right now, in front of our very eyes, in the United States and Poland. This fundamental right of choice is something that patriarchal, religious and conversative powers will consistently seek to undermine. While the personal toll of activism is often unrecognised, one positive of the repeal victory, was that feminist energies could now be re-focussed on other pressing and overdue issues. Over thirty-five years, Irish women's activism had been engaged with many areas of inequality. Emerging slowly from a post-colonial, Catholic-dominated and deeply conservative State, women had to battle for rights within marriage, and the right to end marriage (that took two referendums to achieve), to change the laws on rape and domestic violence, to gain equal rights in employment, to fight for the right to self-determined sexuality, to gain broader access to contraceptives, to childcare, to real political participation and representation and a whole lot more. However, as all these battles were ongoing, we always had to return, again and again, to abortion and reproductive rights. There was no escape: the unresolved issue of abortion constantly demanded time and strategic energies, not least of which was dealing with profound structural inequalities between women, which had, and still have, to be fully and honestly recognised and addressed. An aspect that can be overlooked however by both scholars and activists alike, is that in the decade or so following the insertion of the 8th into the constitution, Irish society was changing, and not least because of the impact of feminist work on attitudes, behaviours and the law. In 1992, a second referendum was held on abortion, and the right of women and pregnant people to information on full reproductive services abroad, and to travel to avail of these services was accepted by the electorate. Again in 2002, when the there was a second attempt to remove suicidal ideation as grounds for an abortion, the electorate refused. Both of these referendums were, in their limited way, 'wins', indicating that abortion was moving away from the terrain of morality towards a more nuanced, health-centred perspective. As Ireland slowly and often quite painfully secularised, decriminalising homosexuality in 1993, permitting the sale of contraceptives in Ireland without prescription in 1993, and finally allowing divorce in 1996, space began to open up to discuss women's rights, and the rights of minorities and marginalised groups. Reproductive rights remained a difficult subject, however, not least because the term
Equality, Democracy, Solidarity: The Politics of Abortion
The ongoing criminalisation of abortion is not justified in terms of safety, healthcare, civil liberty or any consistent morality. Restriction of access to abortion is a political issue that only facilitates unjustifiable social control. A prochoice position of a ‘Woman’s Right to Choose’ respects the decision of any individual to decide whether to have an abortion or not and should raise also the political issue of access to services that facilitate either decision. The antichoice position respects neither position and its political advocates in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have a track record in opposing health and welfare services that would facilitate either choice. This paper also outlines the failure of arguments around later abortions or selective abortion to undermine the principle of a woman's right to choose.
Journal of health psychology, 2018
Discourses of 'choice' are routinely involved in sexual and reproductive rights' advocacy. In this article, we offer a discursive psychological examination of how 'choice' is oriented to, in online deliberations on the ongoing movement for abortion rights in Ireland. Comment posters treated 'choice' as involving outcomes of and motives for choosing, in negotiating legitimacy of women's rights to choose. These accompanied alternative versions of women, either as independent or as intimately bound up with pregnancy/motherhood, which were flexibly used in negotiation legitimacy of women's rights to 'choice' in abortion practices. Choice advocacy is then situated in particular discursive practices.
A B and C vs Ireland: A New Beginning to Access Legal Abortion in the Republic of Ireland?
This article analyses some possible political implications of the case and the decision in A. B. and C. v. Ireland at the European Court of Human Rights. This case was heard in a public hearing on 9 December 2009; the judgment was provided in December 2010. I argue that the three applicants in this case employed a novel strategy, not previously considered, to access legal abortion in the Republic of Ireland. By highlighting the varied circumstances of unintended pregnancy in more than a single instance, the applicants utilized an offensive manoeuvre to which the government is unlikely to respond consistently over time. They exposed Irish governments' use of clandestine political negotiations in relation to European treaties, the questionable exertion of governments' authority to uphold political and moral agendas and racialized constructions of Irishness and national interests. The applicants also raised serious questions about state practices in the Republic of Ireland in relation to its legal obligation to uphold human rights under the European Convention. However, I argue that it is unlikely that this novel strategy and legal decision and their political implications are enough to adequately address the lack of access to legal abortion in the Republic of Ireland.