Feminists witness legal worlds as they observe, document and share nothing less than the reproduction of life itself. The world of the abortion trail, where people and things move across borders to change life’s reproduction, has generated a rich variety of legal sources, figures and objects for feminist witnessing. In watching how feminist activists improvise with sources, figures and objects of legal consciousness on the abortion trail, this article seeks to contribute to critical understanding of a plurality of witnessing practice, (...) particularly as it emerges in diaspora space. Focusing on Murphy’s concept of immodest witnessing, with its attention to bodies, protocols and apparatuses as constituents of knowledge, the article thinks with the diasporic feminist performance group, Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A., about how they used self-examination, collaboration and knowledge-sharing on the trail to repeal Ireland’s 8th Amendment. The article argues that their improvisation with legal consciousness of reproductive choice enacts ‘cheeky witnessing’. Cheeky witnessing has three dynamics as a method of observation. First, it is messy and irreverent in innovating with names to display the mixed genealogies of feminist knowledge. Second, cheeky witnessing generates novel subject-figures who make connections between different reproductive labourers as observers of the trail in diaspora space. Third, cheeky witnessing places funny objects, knickers in this instance, so as to join up particular public locations and make them more, if unevenly, comfortable for sexual and reproductive bodies. Cheeky witnessing shows us how committed and partial practices play a role in speaking across interests and experiences, in stretching the legal imagination and in sustaining the everyday grind of making a better world. (shrink)

In the context of Ireland’s new legislation governing abortion, I outline and examine the spatial consequences of political decision-making. I argue that Ireland’s new abortion law and its clinical guidance permit travel for some pregnant people but impose fixity on others. I analyse the spatial consequences of legal limitations, including non-medically necessary delays in care and medical control of medication abortions, that necessitate travel for abortion. I demonstrate how current laws fix some pregnant people in place, including diverse migrant populations (...) within Ireland, with no possibilities for abortion-related travel. This critique of the ‘new’ law demonstrates the Irish state’s continued political and medical control of abortion. (shrink)

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 Yes – the national civil society campaign advocating for a ‘Yes’ vote in the referendum – was 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 Ireland – an issue now translated into limited legislation and inadequate provision of services. (shrink)

This article analyses abortion health activism (AHA) in the Irish context. AHA is a form of activism focused on enabling abortion access where it is restricted. Historically, AHA has involved facilitating the movement of abortion seekers along ‘abortion trails’ (Rossiter, 2009). Organisations operate transnationally, enabling access to abortion care across borders. Such AHA is a form of feminist anarchism, resisting prohibitions on abortion through direct action. However, AHA work has changed over time. Existing scholarship relates this to advancements in medical (...) technology, particularly the emergence of telemedicine and the increased use of early medical abortion. This article goes beyond those explanations to explore how else AHA has changed by comparing the work of AHA before and after the Republic of Ireland’s referendum on abortion in May 2018. Based on this, I argue that there is a visible shift in the politics of AHA. Drawing on qualitative data from research on AHA organisations along the Liverpool–Ireland Abortion Corridor, specifically those based outside Ireland, the article argues that in the aftermath of the referendum, Irish AHA has increasingly moved towards decolonising feminist activism, thus drawing attention to the relationship between abortion health activists (AHAs) and broader political discourses entangled with abortion law reform. (shrink)

Providers are essential to the delivery of abortion care. Yet, they often occupy an ambiguous space in political discourse around abortion. The introduction of a new abortion service in Ireland invites us to look afresh at providers. Since the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 came into force, by far the most common form of abortion care has been early medical abortion (EMA). This is typically provided by General Practitioners (GPs), with approximately 10% of GPs having chosen to (...) provide EMA. This article draws on an empirical study of providers to investigate their motivations for, and experiences of, provision and their views on colleagues who have not chosen to provide. The study shows that for many providers, the choice to provide was grounded in a moral commitment to protecting women’s rights to autonomy and health and ensuring that the harms of the past were not repeated. The article argues that notwithstanding increased normalisation of EMA in Ireland, conscience still has a role to play in abortion care provision and it is important to reflect on the various aspects of this role. (shrink)

Taking Poland as a case study, this article examines the sociological and historical-institutional factors that determine the relationship between the process of medical professionalisation and reproductive rights in transitional societies. Focusing on three periods in Polish history, (a) Partition era (1772–1918), (b) the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), and (c) the post-war period (1945–1989), it identifies ruptures and continuities that have shaped the development of the Polish medical profession and its attitude towards abortion care today. Using insights from feminist historical institutionalism, (...) abortion studies, and the sociology of professions, the article applies the concept of ‘dialectical transformations’ to explain institutional and policy reproduction and change over time. It shows how professional and legal institutions are often transferred from one systemic context to another by individuals or organisations whose positions move from opposition to dominance. Understanding such processes is especially important in light of the retrenchment of reproductive rights across the globe. (shrink)

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. (shrink)