| Abstract |
"In the aftermath of the successful 2018 vote to repeal Ireland's divisive anti-abortion Eighth Amendment to the Constitution (1983) and pave the way for legal abortion, author Maeve Higgins captured the sentiments of the feminist activist community when she wrote in the New York Times, "There's this feeling I get ... in Ireland, particularly among women, and I wish you could feel it, too, because it's extraordinary. It's something like electricity but really a more ancient source of power, like fire, and the thing about fire, of course, is that it's catching." Higgins's likening of women's health activism to a natural source of power taps into traditions of feminine influence in Irish culture and also conjoins the past and present, nodding to the essential historical precedents of recent "electric" activism in Ireland. Her categorization of fire as a contagious force references the extraordinary potency and diffusion of women's health activist movements in Ireland, which have indeed been "catching," helping not only to overturn abortion law but also to legalize same-sex marriage (2015), move toward woman-centered health care, such as by reforming CervicalCheck and enacting the Coroners Amendment Act (2019) requiring an official investigation into all maternal deaths, and, currently, lead the call for further inquiries into the Magdalen laundries and Mother and Baby Homes"-- Provided by publisher. |
