Suchergebnisse

This short reflection presents a personal account of the process and outcome, the achievements and disappointments of legislative reform following the Irish referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution. While the new Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 will afford access to legal abortion to many women for the first time in Ireland, it does not meet feminist demands and is likely to exclude a range of women in difficult and marginalised circumstances. The piece reflects on the frustrations and compromises of feminist law reform and concludes that the process of abortion law reform in Ireland will be ongoing.

Between 1935 and 1985, Irish law criminalised the sale and importation of condoms. Activists established illegal markets to challenge the law and alleviate its social consequences. They distributed condoms through postal services, shops, stalls, clinics and machines. Though they largely operated in the open, their activities attracted little direct punishment from the state, and they were able to build a stable network of medical and commercial family planning services. We use 30 interviews conducted with former activists to explore this history. In doing so, we also examine the limits of 'illegality' in describing acts of everyday resistance to law. We argue that the boundaries between legal and illegal, in the discourses and practices of those who sought actors to challenge the state, were shifting and uncertain. In turn, we revisit 'illegality', characterizing it as an assemblage of varying selectively-performed political practices, shaped by complex choreographies of negotiation between state and non-state actors.

Ireland has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. Abortion has been criminalised since 1861, and the passage of the 8th Amendment in 1983 introduced 'the right to life of the unborn' into the Constitution. The effects of the 8th Amendment are felt on a daily basis by women leaving Ireland for abortion, by pregnant women receiving maternal care, by doctors caring for pregnant women, and by lawyers working for the health service. As predicted by the then-Attorney General Peter Sutherland at the time of the referendum, the 8th Amendment has introduced an uncertain and practically unusable position to Irish law. It has, simply put, become "unliveable".In late 2014 Labour Women, a branch of the Irish Labour Party, established a Commission for Repeal of the 8th Amendment. That Commission comprised three groups: a political group, a medical group, and a group of legal experts. The authors of this paper are those legal experts. In this paper, we first outline the legal status quo as regards abortion in Ireland before making a case for constitutional reform. Having established the desirability of, and need for, constitutional reform we then outline the working principles that informed our drafting of the accompanying Access to Abortion Bill 2015, bearing in mind our intention to craft a model for reform that would be workable from the perspective of women's lives, medical practice, and politics. Although drafted as part of the Labour Women Commission, and with some (limited) input from the other Commission groups, the proposed draft is that of the authors of this paper (working within the confines of our remit as 'legal experts' to the Commission) and not of the Labour Party or of Labour Women. It is made available here for discussion, debate and development by all interested parties.

Ireland has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. Abortion has been criminalised since 1861, and the passage of the 8th Amendment in 1983 introduced 'the right to life of the unborn' into the Constitution. The effects of the 8th Amendment are felt on a daily basis by women leaving Ireland for abortion, by pregnant women receiving maternal care, by doctors caring for pregnant women, and by lawyers working for the health service. As predicted by the then-Attorney General Peter Sutherland at the time of the referendum, the 8th Amendment has introduced an uncertain and practically unusable position to Irish law. It has, simply put, become "unliveable".In late 2014 Labour Women, a branch of the Irish Labour Party, established a Commission for Repeal of the 8th Amendment. That Commission comprised three groups: a political group, a medical group, and a group of legal experts. The authors of this Draft Bill are those legal experts. In the accompanying paper, we first outline the legal status quo as regards abortion in Ireland before making a case for constitutional reform. Having established the desirability of, and need for, constitutional reform we then outline the working principles that informed our drafting of the Access to Abortion Bill 2015, bearing in mind our intention to craft a model for reform that would be workable from the perspective of women's lives, medical practice, and politics. Although drafted as part of the Labour Women Commission, and with some (limited) input from the other Commission groups, the proposed draft is that of the authors (working within the confines of our remit as 'legal experts' to the Commission) and not of the Labour Party or of Labour Women. It is made available here for discussion, debate and development by all interested parties.