Technologies of protest in Irish abortion activism

Abstract

In the decades before the historic legalization of abortion in the Republic of Ireland in 2018, activists used creative methods to educate, agitate, and advocate for changes in abortion law and access. In the 2000s, the availability of the “abortion pills,” mifepristone and misoprostol, began to affect patterns of illegal abortion access, as well as the methods of protest used by those advocating for legal abortion. This article examines protest actions orchestrated by Irish abortion activists from 2014 to 2018 that used abortion pills as technologies of protest. I argue that abortion pill protests introduced a new “protest logic” to abortion activism, both in Ireland and around the world (De Zordo, Mishtal, and Anton 2017). By using abortion pills as a central object in public protests, activists repackaged abortion pills from “technologies of access” to “technologies of protest.” These new tactics were not without controversy. I suggest that the conflicts that emerged from abortion pill protests helped shape new activist claims about abortion access and ultimately led to positive social and legislative change. As abortion pill use increases globally in the face of growing restrictions, the use of pills as technologies of protest will continue to affect abortion activism and other social movements.

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