Quiet Contestations of Irish Abortion Law: Abortion Politics in Flux?

Abstract

Ireland has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. The terms and extent of discussions about reproductive rights have long been shaped by the Irish Catholic Church. Recently, public disapproval of the Church has intensified due to revelations of improprieties, raising questions about the Church’s role as a moral authority. This chapter examines perspectives of doctors who provide reproductive health services in enacting, circumventing, or rebuffing Catholic influence in healthcare. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in Ireland with reproductive healthcare providers, it argues that incipient forms of contestations, however individualized and quiet, to the Catholic ethos in healthcare are emerging in the Irish medical community. These emergent contestations on individual level parallel public stirrings and wider debates about access to abortion in Ireland.