Reproductive Citizenship: Comparative analysis of effects of differential pathways to legalising abortion on Island of Ireland on Service User Articulations of Citizenship

ABOUT ReproCIT

Until 2019, abortion was illegal, with little exception, on both parts of the island of Ireland. On both parts of the island, legal change has meant abortion care is now a part of legal reproductive health care. For people seeking abortion care since 2019, this has meant being able to access abortion care at home, where previously they would have had to travel abroad.

This study explores how women and people who can get pregnant feel about their sense of belonging in each country because they can now access this care at home. We are interested to see how the legal regulation of reproductive health shapes people’s sense of belonging to the state they live in, or what we call reproductive citizenship.

We want to capture how the historic changes impacted on women and people who can get pregnant across the island. We want to interview people who have had abortions since legalisation about the legal change and how it was brought about to hear if this has impacted on their sense of belonging. We will do this through confidential, one-to-one interviews with people who have accessed abortion in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland since legalisation. Below is our Call for Participants and Full Study Information.

Click to return your Expression of Interest: https://forms.office.com/e/3bPqkxLH15

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Study Team

dr. catherine CONLON

Principal Investigator, Associate Professor in Social Policy, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin

Her research focuses on the social politics of reproduction and sexuality. An expert in qualitative research methods, she has published widely on abortion and crisis pregnancy, sexual socialisation, and inter-generational relations. She completed research with Irish women attending abortion services in England in 1994-1996 and again in 2004-2006 and on topics including parents’ accounts of talking with their children about sexuality, the body and growing up. She co-authored, with Evelyn Mahon and Lucy Dillon, Women and Crisis Pregnancy published by Government Publications in 1998. She publishes in high-impact, peer-reviewed academic journals including Qualitative Research, Qualitative Health Research and Gender & Society. Dr Conlon teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, supervises Masters and PhD students, and is Co-Director of TCD’s Social Policy Joint Honours programme.

Dr. Fiona Bloomer

CO-Principal Investigator, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, School of Applied Social and Policy Science, Ulster University.

She is an international expert on abortion policy, publishing extensively on this topic, including as lead author of the critically acclaimed book, Reimagining Global Abortion Politics. Dr Bloomer’s research played a key role in informing the campaign to change the abortion law in Northern Ireland, where she worked closely with the activist organisation Alliance for Choice. She was called as an expert witness to three inquiries on abortion in Northern Ireland, hosted by The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, and British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Fiona is co-editor of a forthcoming two-volume book, published by Bloomsbury, which examines how decriminalisation of abortion was achieved in Northern Ireland. Each chapter is authored by an individual or collection of individuals who were directly involved in the decades-long battle to achieve historic legal change.

Dr. Kate Antosik-Parsons

Post-Doctoral Researcher, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin.

Kate is an interdisciplinary scholar working across the humanities and social sciences. Her research focuses on the cultural and social histories of gender and sexuality in Ireland. She was previously a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Social Studies on the HSE- Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy (SCHPP) funded Unplanned Pregnancy and Abortion Care (UnPAC) study researching people’s experiences of accessing abortion care in Ireland since January 2019. She has published on topics of embodiment, gender and sexuality in Irish art and visual culture, and on pedagogy and leadership in feminist activism.

Dr. Emma Campbell

Post-Doctoral Researcher, School of Applied Social and Political Science, Ulster University.

She completed her practice-based PhD which addressed photography as an activist tool for abortion rights, at Ulster University. She is also a member of the Turner Prize-winning Array Collective and has exhibited in international solo and group shows. Emma is the co-convenor of Alliance for Choice and a core campaigner since 2011.

Events

Date	Time	Event Details	Mode	Registration Link
25- 28 Sept 2024	TBC	Panel in collaboration with START GPs at World Organization of National Colleges, Academies and Academic Associations of General Practitioners/Family Physicians (WONCA), Conference, Sept 2024	In-Person
23- 26 July 2024	TBC	Oral Presentation, EASA 2024: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology, Barcelona “Doing Reproductive Citizenship: conceptualising newly legalised abortion seeking through experience narratives and artivism.“	In-Person
9 May 24		Oral Presentation, Radical Futures Conference, Radical Humanities Laboratory, University College Cork Emma Campbell and Kate Antosik-Parsons presenting: “Co-Creating Abortion Utopias”	In-Person
22 March	2.00pm-4.00pm	Abortion Utopia Through Creative Practice Workshop, Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics	In-Person	https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/abortion-utopia-through-creative-practice-tickets-815506581137
17 February	11.00am-12.00pm	Plenary Session: Understanding Opposition and Safeguarding Rights. Dr Fiona Bloomer is facilitating the plenary session and Dr Catherine Conlon is speaking on the panel on abortion law change in the Republic of Ireland.	In-Person	https://arjc2024.asap-asia.org
16-19 February (TBC)	2.00pm-4.00pm	Oral Presentation ARJC – Bangkok Thailand “‘Reconceptualising Reproductive Citizenship: Emerging Insights from a Comparative Study of Abortion Seekers on the Island of Ireland Following Legalisation”	In-Person	https://arjc2024.asap-asia.org
15 February	2.00pm-5.00pm	Pre-Conference Workshop at the Abortion and Reproductive Justice Conference – Bangkok, Thailand Reproductive Citizenship: Arts and Abortion Utopia Toolkit Pre-Conference Workshop Registration This workshop aims to convene global peers interested in abortion art activism to share developments in abortion art activism from their own contexts and introduce the concept of Reproductive Citizenship as a shared lens. Once registered we will invite participants to a pre-conference online meeting where activists will bring together examples of creative outputs from their own contexts to share online. This will help set the scene for the workshop in Bangkok, where we will work through the idea of Reproductive Citizenship through creative methods. After the workshop in Bangkok, there will then be space to collate the work into a guide for practice. We have room for 20 people at the Bangkok workshop, any registered after will be added to a waiting list. Everyone will be invited to the pre-conference webinar.	In-Person	https://forms.gle/tsbeVx8pbAw7Y6GR6 Please note: Registration is for ARJC conference attendees only. https://arjc2024.asap-asia.org
9 January	1.00 pm-3.00pm	Arts-based workshop from the All-Ireland Reprocit project examining abortion art activism and introducing the concept of Reproductive Citizenship in conjunction with the multi-national LARABBI project (https://larabii.hi.is/). The LARABBI project set out to examine how the abortion legislative successes of Ireland (2018), Iceland (2019), and Northern Ireland (2019) can be emulated in different political environments and identify the pitfalls to be avoided for those seeking to ensure women’s human rights.	In-Person
27 October 2023	9.00am-6.00pm	“Conceptualising Reproductive Citizenship Through Abortion Regulation and Experiences on the Island of Ireland”, Oral Presentation, After the Review Conference	In- Person
27 October 2023	9.00am-6.00pm	Conference: After the Review: What Next for Irish Abortion Services?	In-Person	Register Here: https://www.tcd.ie/swsp/Conference.php
26 October 2023	4.00pm-6.00pm	Abortion Regulation in Germany: An Insight into Current Developments with Professor Maria Wersig, Hannover University of Applied Sciences.	In-person	To Register Please Email: reprocitproject@gmail.com
25 August 2023	12.30pm to 2pm (BST)	Abortion and Reproductive Justice Conference Webinar	Online
22nd May 2023	12:00-2:00 pm (BST)	Reproducing Law Otherwise? Roundtable reflections on new directions in abortion law and reproductive justice after #Dobbs, #Repealedthe8th, #Decrim #AbortoLegal, and more. Roundtable 1 to include Barbara Baird, Catherine Conlon, Erica Millar, Kate Antosik-Parsons, Maeve Taylor, Paola Bergallo, Ruth Fletcher Organisers: Ruth Fletcher, Leverhulme Research Fellow, QMUL Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context; Catherine Conlon, Reproductive Citizenship Project, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin; Matt Evans and Gbemisola Obolo, QMUL Legal Advice Centre.	Online	https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reproducing-law-otherwise-online-tickets-626990364057
22nd May 2023	6:00-8:00 pm(BST)	Reproducing Law Otherwise? Roundtable reflections on new directions in abortion law and reproductive justice after #Dobbs, #Repealedthe8th, #Decrim #AbortoLegal, and more. Roundtable 2 to include Caoilfhionn Gallagher, Emma Campbell, Máiréad Enright, Sabrina Germain, Sandra Duffy Organisers: Ruth Fletcher, Leverhulme Research Fellow, QMUL Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context; Catherine Conlon, Reproductive Citizenship Project, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin; Matt Evans and Gbemisola Obolo, QMUL Legal Advice Centre.	(hybrid from QMUL Lincoln’s Inn Fields)	https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reproducing-law-otherwise-hybrid-tickets-627006903527
15 March 2023	4:00 pm (ACST)	‘From Repeal to Implementation: Recent direction of abortion law in Ireland.’ Dr Catherine Conlon, Fay Gale Seminar Series, The University of Adelaide	In-Person & Online

Past events

Contact Details

Get in Touch with us

Ireland Address: Trinity College, College Green, Dublin, D02, Ireland

Website:

https://www.tcd.ie/swsp/

Northern Ireland Address: Ulster University, 2-24 York Street, Belfast, BT15 1AP

Website: https://www.ulster.ac.uk/faculties/arts-humanities-and-social-sciences/applied-social-policy-sciences

Email:

reprocitproject@gmail.com