‘Changed Utterly’: The Citizens’ Assembly on the 8th Amendment

Abstract

The 2018 Citizens' Assembly on the 8th Amendment of the Constitution instigated an important process for public participation and deliberation about the legal status of abortion in the Republic of Ireland. Examining the processes of the 2018 Citizens' Assembly, I argue that it was consistent with democratic deliberations as discrete initiatives that function alongside other deliberative processes. I identify and examine some limitations of Citizen Assembly processes, including the tendency to favour monologue over dialogue, the construction of 'objective' reason over the possibility of emotion in deliberations, and processes of exclusion that limited understandings and applications of Iris Marion Young's idea about social justice. Their implications were identified as limitations in public engagement and political decision making in the Republic of Ireland in a 2017 Council of Europe fact-finding report. In future, acknowledging and addressing these limitations could enhance the use of Citizens' Assemblies and their relationship to other systemic processes to consider constitutional change.

Abortion as healthcare: The adaptability of medicalization and legalization in post‐repeal anti‐abortion politics

“…The new legislative framework, the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, allows for abortion up to 12 weeks' pregnancy, and in case of a risk to the life or health of the pregnant person 1 or in case of a fatal fetal anomaly. The law followed from extensive processes of political consultations and was drafted after multiple deliberative committees and reports, that is to say, it was highly regulated by the state (Side, 2022). Since abortion care was implemented on January 1, 2019, the provision has been subject to a statutory review to critically appraise the functioning of the Health Act 2018 and this has been at the center of abortion debates in the last 4 years.…”