Abstract
This chapter outlines the current position regarding abortion in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and provides a brief explanation of the history of abortion law in Ireland. It explains why the book adopts a historical and an all-island approach to the analysis of abortion in Ireland arguing that both provide the necessary context required to understand this complex and ‘live’ issue as part of a broader history of women’s health and female agency.
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Notes
- 1.
The president of Ireland signed the bill to repeal the eighth amendment to the Irish constitution on 18 September 2018. Legislation is still to follow. F. Kelly, ‘President Signs Bill Repealing Eighth Amendment into Law’, Irish Times , 18 September 2018.
- 2.
S. Singh, L. Remez, G. Sedgh, L. Kwok, and T. Onda, Abortion Worldwide 2017 Uneven Progress and Unequal Access (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2018), p. 14.
- 3.
Ibid., p. 15.
- 4.
K. H. Connell , Irish Peasant Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 62–63.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 245.
- 6.
For the full text of these sections see, Offences against the Person Act , 1861 on the Irish Statute Book website, http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1861/act/100/section/58/enacted/en/html. Also available on, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/58.
- 7.
Ireland was partitioned under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, which came into force on 3 May 1921.
- 8.
Northern Ireland was created by the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 and comprises the six north-eastern Ulster counties of Antrim , Armagh , Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry/Derry and Tyrone. Although Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom, it can reject its laws on a limited basis. The Irish Free State , comprising the remaining twenty-six counties on the island, was provided with dominion status under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. For more detailed information see, S. J. Connolly, The Oxford Companion to Irish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 390–92, p. 268.
- 9.
The first census of the Irish Free State recorded a total population of 2,971,992 of which 2,751,269 was Roman Catholic. Northern Ireland’s census was held on the same day in 1926 and recorded a total population of 1,256,561 of which 653,029 belonged to one of the main Protestant faiths (Presbyterian, 300,101; Church of Ireland, 303,374 and Methodist, 49,554) and 420,428 to the Roman Catholic church. For the Irish Free State , see, Department of Industry and Commerce, Soarstát Éireann, Census of Population, 1926, Volume III: Part 1 Religions (Dublin, 1926), p. 1; For Northern Ireland see, Table 27: Religious Professions, Census 1926: Northern Ireland, General Report (Belfast: HMSO, 1926), p. 57.
- 10.
L. Hall, Sex , Gender and Social Change in Britain Since 1880 (London: Red Globe Press, 2000); H. Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex and Contraception , 1800–1975 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 113–21.
- 11.
D. Urquhart, A History of Irish Divorce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2019).
- 12.
The papal encyclical Casti Connubii (1931), for example, condemned the: ‘inversion of the true order of things, ready and bountiful assistance provided to the unmarried mother and her illegitimate offspring (who, of course must be helped in order to avoid a greater evil ) which is denied to legitimate mothers’. Cited in A. Fremantle, The Papal Encyclicals in Their Historical Context (New York: The New American Library, 1956), p. 242.
- 13.
The Netherlands has, for example, emerged as a key site on the Irish abortion trail.
- 14.
A phrase repeatedly used in relation to Irish unmarried mothers who migrated to Britain. See Chapter 2.
- 15.
For an exploration of these power structures see, L. Earner-Byrne, Letters of the Catholic Poor: Poverty in Independent Ireland, 1920–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 211–51.
- 16.
- 17.
After the initial referendum in 1983, there were three referendums in 1992, one in 2002 and one in 2018.
- 18.
The conflict in Northern Ireland, popularly known as ‘the troubles’, occurred between 1969 and 1998. The peace process era is generally regarded as having commenced in early 1990s and culminated in the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998.
- 19.
The woman, accompanied by a female friend, travelled from Ireland to the UK for an abortion on 22 August 2016. They live tweeted about their experience, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/abortion-ban-ireland-woman-live-tweets-journey-twitter-a7200916.html, accessed 5 October 2017.
- 20.
Ibid.
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Earner-Byrne, L., Urquhart, D. (2019). Introduction. In: The Irish Abortion Journey, 1920–2018. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03855-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03855-7_1
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