Transformative Illegality: How Condoms ‘Became Legal’ in Ireland, 1991–1993

Enright, Máiréad; Cloatre, Emilie

doi:10.1007/s10691-018-9392-1

Cited by 17 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…More generally see Yamin and Gloppen (2011). 44 See Enright and Cloatre (2018) in this issue for a fascinating account of the role of the Irish Family Planning Association in challenging the legal restrictions of condom provision. seen how successful repeal will be as a means of broader socio-legal transformation and revaluing of life's reproduction more generally.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

#RepealedThe8th: Translating Travesty, Global Conversation, and the Irish Abortion Referendum

Fletcher

2018

Fem Leg Stud

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Why does #RepealedThe8th matter for feminist legal studies? The answers seem obvious in one sense. Feminism has long constituted itself through the struggle for sexual and reproductive justice, and Irish feminism has contributed a significant 'legal win' with the landslide vote of approval for lifting abortion restrictions in the referendum on the 25th May 2018. That win comes at a global moment when populist legal engagement is doing significant damage in countries that regard themselves as world leaders, and beyond. #RepealedThe8th offers Ireland, and the world, the actuality that the popular vote, and everything that contributes to it, could be something else. Repeal shows how legal tools like the vote may be made into an expression of care for reproductive lives. This expression is important in recognizing pregnant people as knowing agents who are best placed to decide, and in seeking to do justice to those who contribute to everyday reproductive life. But repeal, like the many who brought it into being, has multiple meanings. #RepealedThe8th matters because it is a moving process of sociolegal translation, which draws on a collective energy, 'repeal energy', to turn the travesty that was the Eighth Amendment and all it represents into a search for the rest of reproductive life. In opening up the meaning of the vote, much like feminists elsewhere have opened up the meaning of the strike, Irish feminists have turned public mourning over past mistreatment into a series of reproductive connections. This is not a strategy that can be rolled out. Figuring out #RepealedThe8th will take many tellings. Rather we need to give repeal, and repealers, room to breathe and rest. We need to feel our way through repeal's production of legal change so that this success is not reduced to some generic transferable set of legal instructions. I begin by reflecting on repeal as a process of feminist socio-legal translation, which shows us how legal change comes about through the motivation of collective joy, the mourning of damaged and lost lives, the sharing of legal knowledge, and the claiming of the rest of reproductive life.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

#RepealedThe8th: Translating Travesty, Global Conversation, and the Irish Abortion Referendum

Fletcher

2018

Fem Leg Stud

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“…Nonetheless, since 1983, pro-choice feminists had been engaged in alternative forms of solidarity and resistance work through which they facilitated abortion travel between Ireland and other countries. People inside Ireland have long refused to abide by its extremely restrictive laws on abortion and contraception, for example by smuggling in condoms and distributing them through increasingly public displays of non-compliance (Cloatre and Enright, 2017; Enright and Cloatre, 2018), or by sharing prohibited information on abortion at stalls in city centres and through advice hotlines (IWASG, 1988). In their 1988 piece in Feminist Review , the Irish Women’s Abortion Support Group, an ‘Irishwomen’s collective’ in London operating since 1981, described their activities including running an information line, organising appointments for women at abortion clinics, negotiating with the clinics about price, meeting abortion seekers upon their arrival in England, hosting them overnight in their homes and sometimes providing childcare ( ibid.…”

Section: Transnational Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abortion in Ireland: Introduction to the Themed Issue

Calkin¹,

Londras²,

Heathcote³

2020

Feminist Review

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Trinity College Dublin to discuss spatiality and abortion law reform in Ireland. The 8 th Amendment ('the 8 th ') was still part of the Irish Constitution. Some contributors were cautious, wary of predicting success in the forthcoming referendum, nervous of the fight to come. Others were more confident; change would come, the 8 th would be removed from the Constitution, a new and better law would replace it although, of course, law alone would never be enough. Over the course of the day, scholars, activists, artists, politicians and policymakers discussed what was possible, likely, desirable. Ours was one of thousands of gatherings that had taken place over three-and-a-half decades of activism for abortion law reform in Ireland, but also one of the earliest since the government had confirmed that there would be a referendum on repeal of the 8 th Amendment. The referendum was scheduled for 25 May 2018, almost exactly three months after our workshop. By the time those of us based outside of Ireland were scheduled to fly back to our homes the next day, the snow had become so heavy that many flights had been cancelled. Our time in Dublin extended as the weather worsened. Those unexpected Dublin days contained moments of togetherness, happiness, frustration and exhaustion; on occasion our stuckness brought us together over pints and on snowy walks through almost-deserted city streets. We thought and spoke frequently of the dozens of women who must have had to abandon flights that had been booked to take them for their desired abortions over those days. Some of them probably ended up having to continue with their pregnancies, mere months too early for the referendum and almost a year too early for the new law that would finally make abortion lawful for many women in many circumstances in the Republic of Ireland. Much has, of course, changed since our gathering in Dublin. The 8 th Amendment has been repealed. The new law, the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 (2018), has been introduced. As of 22 October 2019, abortion has been decriminalised for our siblings in Northern Ireland and legislation is expected there in the spring of 2020. However, as we predicted on that snowy day in Dublin, reproductive life under the new constitutional and legislative regime remains difficult, uneven and sometimes cruel. In the articles, Open Space pieces and creative 897684F ER0010.

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“…Together with the Condom Sense campaign, some student unions illegally installed condom vending machines in Irish universities. 110…”

Section: Student Press and Gay Rights Activism In Irish Universitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Together with the Condom Sense campaign, some student unions illegally installed condom vending machines in Irish universities. 110 Condom Sense was a short-lived direct action campaign comprising organisations such as the Cork AIDS Alliance and AIDS West Galway which had emerged in 1992 to highlight the importance of condoms in the battle to combat the spread of AIDS. 111 Enright and Cloatre note that 'by late 1992, they [Condom Sense] had installed 140 condom machines, to limited police response'.…”

Section: Student Press and Gay Rights Activism In Irish Universitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Homosexuality is not a problem – it doesn’t do you any harm and can be lots of fun’: Students and Gay Rights Activism in Irish Universities, 1970s–1980s

McDonagh

2019

Irish Economic and Social History

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Using primary archival material, this article explores the role of students and universities in the campaign for gay rights in Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. At a time when few organisations in Ireland involved themselves in the campaign for gay rights, student bodies facilitated the promotion of gay rights, interaction between gay rights organisations and students and challenged the legal and societal attitudes towards homosexuality in Ireland. In doing so, universities, both north and south of the border, became important spaces of gay rights activism, both in terms of the activities taking place there, but also symbolically, as gay and lesbian students challenged their right to claim a space within their respective universities, something denied to them in the past. Moreover, through the use of the student press, conferences and campaigns to gain official recognition for gay societies, students helped to promote a broader discussion on gay rights in Ireland. This case study analysis of gay rights activism on Irish universities offers an insight into the importance of exploring the efforts of students beyond the long 1960s, arguing that students continued to be important agents in challenging the status quo in Ireland and transforming Irish social norms.

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Transformative Illegality: How Condoms ‘Became Legal’ in Ireland, 1991–1993

Cited by 17 publications

References 20 publications

#RepealedThe8th: Translating Travesty, Global Conversation, and the Irish Abortion Referendum

#RepealedThe8th: Translating Travesty, Global Conversation, and the Irish Abortion Referendum

Abortion in Ireland: Introduction to the Themed Issue

‘Homosexuality is not a problem – it doesn’t do you any harm and can be lots of fun’: Students and Gay Rights Activism in Irish Universities, 1970s–1980s

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