{"id":2390,"date":"2018-11-27T18:04:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T23:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/?p=2390"},"modified":"2018-12-04T14:33:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T19:33:19","slug":"the-irish-approach-to-reproductive-rights-centering-personal-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/2018\/11\/the-irish-approach-to-reproductive-rights-centering-personal-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"The Irish Approach to Reproductive Rights: Centering Personal Narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image courtesy of Daily Express<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At a time when Roe v. Wade<\/em> is deeply imperiled in the United States and reactionary conservatism is growing across Europe, Ireland offers a different path forward.\u00a0 In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage by popular vote<\/a>.\u00a0 This year, the country voted by an overwhelming margin\u201366% to 33%\u2013to legalize abortion<\/a>.\u00a0 This is not to say that Ireland is immune from the problems which have plagued other Western democracies.\u00a0 It, too, has had to confront the uncertainty of global relations, the growing tensions over immigration, the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and the increasing incursion of social media into the electoral process.\u00a0 Yet, in Ireland, these pressures have led to an expansion rather than a recall of human rights.\u00a0 So what accounts for this differential Irish response?<\/p>\n

From the outside, Ireland\u2019s evolution into a global human rights leader is surprising.\u00a0 Only two decades ago, Ireland was seen as \u201can economic basket case and [a] Catholic theocracy<\/a>.\u201d Condoms and other contraceptives were not legalized for sale without prescription until 1985<\/a>.\u00a0 Even more strikingly, divorce was not legalized until 1995, in a narrowly won referendum<\/a> that split the electorate with 50.28% in favor and 49.79% against.\u00a0 The easiest explanation for these changes, and the one most often pointed to<\/a>, is the recent spate of Catholic church scandals and the subsequent Irish disillusionment with religious moral authority.\u00a0 While many countries have been touched by Catholic abuse scandals, the Irish experience is uniquely pervasive, and singularly lodged in the deeply personal narratives of Irish citizens.\u00a0 For centuries, the fusion of church and state led to the creation of an interlocking system of schools, group homes, and so-called \u201cMagdalene Laundries\u201d that operated in place of a formal or secular social safety net.\u00a0 Throughout the 2000s, the Irish government produced several reports, beginning with the infamous Ryan Report<\/a>, which detailed the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse suffered by up to 90% of children housed in publicly funded, religiously run schools<\/a>.\u00a0 These investigations continued with the Ferns Report<\/a>, which documented similar abuses throughout Southeast Ireland in 2005, and the Murphy Report<\/a>, which revealed the systematic cover-up of over 300 pedophilia cases over a period of more than thirty years in the Archdiocese of Dublin.\u00a0 Taken all together, these reports led the government to devise redress and reform schemes costing billions of euros<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These shocking revelations had a catastrophic effect on Irish religious life.\u00a0 When Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, he was greeted by an adoring crowd of over 1.2 million worshippers<\/a>.\u00a0 When Pope Francis visited Dublin in early 2018, fewer than 200,000 turned out to Phoenix Park<\/a>.\u00a0 Irish Mass attendance has plummeted from 80% at the time of John Paul II\u2019s visit to 30% today<\/a>.\u00a0 However, many countries have endured religious scandals without emerging with a renewed commitment to human rights or healthcare access.\u00a0 One could just as easily imagine cynicism and apathy winning out.\u00a0 The true key to the puzzle lies in the way<\/em> Ireland addressed these crises of faith.<\/p>\n

The answer may be found in Ireland\u2019s oldest and most well-known export: storytelling.\u00a0 Ireland is home to a strong and celebrated literary tradition, and the national ethos elevates personal narrative as a way of knowing.\u00a0 The reports commissioned by the Irish government did not rely solely on statistics.\u00a0 They included detailed personal accounts from hundreds of survivors.\u00a0 The formal Ryan Report led with a quote by novelist and survivor Paddy Doyle: \u201cNothing about us, without us<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 It was largely the direct testimony of survivors that swayed the nation and ultimately shaped the response to the abuse crisis.<\/p>\n

The voices of Irish women played a key role in exposing a second set of church scandals.\u00a0 Before the legalization of any form of contraception or abortion, Ireland dealt with the \u201cproblem\u201d of unwed mothers through a set of institutions known as the Magdalene Laundries.\u00a0 These for-profit businesses were run by Catholic nuns.\u00a0 \u201cFallen\u201d women (a class which included single mothers, prostitutes, and rape victims, among others) were committed to the laundries by either their families or the state<\/a>.\u00a0 Unable to leave, these women became an unpaid labor force and worked long hours under harsh conditions<\/a>.\u00a0 They faced an exceptionally high mortality rate, and at one of the laundries a mass unmarked grave containing the bodies of 155 women was recently uncovered<\/a>.\u00a0 The children of these \u201cfallen\u201d women were taken from their mothers and either hastily and illegally adopted<\/a> or put under the care of nuns.\u00a0 Under the care of the Church, many children died early deaths from malnutrition and disease.\u00a0 In 2017, a local historian in County Galway uncovered another mass grave<\/a> containing the bodies of 800 infants and toddlers buried in septic tanks outside of a group home run by nuns.\u00a0 All told, over 10,000 women passed through the Magdalene Laundries, and the last such laundry did not close until 1996<\/a>.\u00a0 Significantly, the Irish news media focused on the stories of individual women and children. Papers showed photos of women returning<\/a> to the site of their abuse to pay tribute to their fallen sisters and told stories of adults trying desperately to find the mothers they had been separated from decades before<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Catholic abuse scandals unfolded, a series of highly personal cases were simultaneously challenging the validity of the country\u2019s harsh anti-abortion laws.\u00a0 The blanket Irish ban on abortion was enshrined in the Eighth Amendment to the constitution, which outlawed abortion even in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality, or non-life-threatening risk to the health of the mother.\u00a0 Change came gradually, spurred progressively by each new story that captured the national imagination.\u00a0 The first arose as \u201cThe X Case\u201d<\/a> in 1992.\u00a0 \u201cX\u201d was a 14-year-old rape victim whom the High Court sought to enjoin from leaving the country to seek an abortion.\u00a0 The Supreme Court overturned the injunction on the grounds that X\u2019s life was at risk after she made repeated threats of suicide. The case created such a stir that it led directly to the Thirteenth Amendment to the constitution (which prevents the state from limiting freedom of travel) and the Fourteenth Amendment (which prohibits limitations on the right to disseminate information about international abortion services).\u00a0 Another case made the news in 2012 when Savita Halappanar<\/a>, a married dentist in her early thirties, was admitted to a Dublin hospital in the midst of a miscarriage.\u00a0 Doctors refused to remove the fetal tissue because a fetal heartbeat was still present, and as a result Savita died of blood poisoning.\u00a0 Finally, a 2016 case made Amanda Mellet a \u201chousehold name\u201d<\/a> in Ireland after she sued the government for the distress she experienced while traveling to England for an abortion.\u00a0 Her child had a fatal fetal abnormality and was certain to either die in the womb or within days of being delivered.\u00a0 Both Amanda and her husband dearly wanted the child and were devastated at the loss.\u00a0 After an exhausting trip to England, they were unable to bring their daughter\u2019s ashes back home with them, and instead were forced to ship the remains by courier two weeks later.\u00a0 All of these details became a part of the national dialogue.\u00a0 In each instance, literary flourishes and poignant details were included in news reports and political arguments.\u00a0 The Irish people talked about the distraught and suicidal young X; about Sativa the dentist; about Amanda, the mother separated from her daughter\u2019s ashes.\u00a0 These narratives impelled legislative action, ultimately culminating in the referendum which legalized abortion.<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to the referendum vote, the Irish electorate was faced with a critical question: how could individual voices be heard amidst the unregulated political advertisements, misinformation campaigns, and bots of the digital age?\u00a0 As in the 2016 American presidential election, foreign money and advertising were pouring into the country.\u00a0 These forces threatened to drown out the voices of Irish citizens.\u00a0 A volunteer organization called the Transparent Referendum Initiative<\/a> formed to crowdsource data and track online advertising activity.\u00a0 In response, Facebook made information about advertisers temporarily available<\/a> and took steps to limit foreign political interventions.\u00a0 Google blocked all foreign referendum-related advertisements through AdWords.\u00a0 Another group of Irish volunteers created Repeal Shield<\/a>, a tool which allowed Twitter users to block bot accounts in an effort to maintain safe public spaces for women\u2019s testimony.\u00a0 These efforts were hugely successful. In the end, a poll<\/a> by the Irish national broadcaster RTE found that 43% of Irish voters relied on women\u2019s individual stories when making their decision.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s political transformation shows that, even in a noisy world, the story of a life has the power to shape a nation.\u00a0 There may be lessons to be learned by advocates in the United States who seek to resist a dissolution of abortion rights.\u00a0 Activists will need to look beyond traditional sources of national identity, be they religious or constitutional.\u00a0 The future of reproductive healthcare access may well hinge on our willingness and ability to highlight the personal stories of women.<\/p>\n

\n

Fiona Collins<\/strong> is a first year student at Harvard Law School and an Online Content Editor for the\u00a0Harvard Journal of Law & Gender<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a time when Roe v. Wade is deeply imperiled in the United States and reactionary conservatism is growing across Europe, Ireland offers a different path forward.\u00a0 In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage by popular vote.\u00a0 This year, the country voted by an overwhelming margin\u201366% to 33%\u2013to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQij-Cy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}