Abortion in Ireland: Introduction to the Themed Issue

Repeal of the 8th Amendment and the introduction of new law, or the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland, do not in themselves secure access to abortion in any meaningful, everyday sense. As long as law is used to control women’s bodies—as it was in both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland—dismantling, changing and recasting that law is almost certainly part of how we resist that control. However, we are mindful of Carol Smart’s (1989, p. 5) injunction to exercise caution in the ‘resort to law’, the prescience of which is evident in the shortcomings of the new law in Ireland and may well show itself in the law that is ultimately introduced in Northern Ireland.