‘A Hope Raised and then Defeated’? the Continuing Harms of Irish Abortion Law

Abstract

<jats:p> Irish legislative engagement with abortion law reform has never been framed by recognition of the rights of pregnant women, girls and other people. Rather, where it has taken place at all, it has always been foetocentric and punitive, exceptionalising abortion and conceptualising law as a means of discouraging it. In important ways, the post-repeal landscape has failed to break decisively with this orientation. While in 2018 there was certainly more discussion of women’s entitlement not to be exiled from the country in order to make decisions about reproduction, the framing that dominated legislative and government discourses of abortion law reform was one in which the ‘problem’ being addressed was such that unsafe medication, exclusion from formal medical systems, and the undeserved punishment of people who had received diagnoses of fatal foetal conditions in the course of their ‘much wanted pregnancies’ were the focus. There was little or no engagement in legislative politics with the right to choose, reproductive agency, reproductive justice or the moral standing of pregnant people as ethical decision makers when it came to their pregnancies. As a result, post-repeal abortion law reform was more about managing risk than maximising agency. I will argue that this underpins and partly explains the shortcomings of the new law: the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 (‘HRTPA 2018’). Within that new legal regime, I argue, pregnant people continue to lack decisional security when it comes to their reproductive lives and are exposed to significant constitutional and dignitary harms as a result. </jats:p>

Abortion Im/mobility: Spatial Consequences in the Republic of Ireland

“…These reforms position abortion as a health service, and outline the provision of that service independent from justice- and equity-based arguments (Fletcher, 2018). The Act thus constructs pregnant people as medical patients instead of rights holders (see de Londras, 2020, this issue). Ruth Fletcher (2018, p. 236) argues that rights, as a legal form and in their vernacular use, are partial in their capacity to incorporate ‘social worlds’ and enact a politics of transformation.…”

Persistence and Change in Morality Policy: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Politics of Abortion in Ireland and Poland

“…The progressive delegitimisation of Ireland’s abortion law was observable in public expression of dissatisfaction and widespread non-compliance. This pressure, combined with legal obligations from the European Court of Human Rights’ rulings and discontent with the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 (2013) , led abortion to become an important issue in the 2016 general election and resulted in Fine Gael’s commitment to hold a Citizens’ Assembly, eventually followed by a referendum on the 8 th Amendment (Field, 2018; see de Londras, 2020, this issue). When the referendum was held in May 2018, the electorate voted to repeal by 66.4 per cent to 33.6 per cent, with a turnout of 64.13 per cent (Field, 2018).…”

Four Pieces on Repeal: Notes on Art, Aesthetics and the Struggle Against Ireland’s Abortion Law

“…I argue that in Ireland before Repeal, the police order took the form, in part, of a particular juridical discourse, specific to abortion. Arguably, aspects of it survived Repeal (Enright, 2019; de Londras, 2020, this issue). What follows is not a comprehensive discussion of developments in Irish abortion law before and after May 2018, but a sketch of that police order’s two central pillars.…”