In May 2018, the Irish public voted to repeal the 8th amendment of the constitution – an article which protected the right to life of the ‘unborn’ - thereby paving the way towards the legal provision of abortion for the first time in the country’s history. Adding to critical feminist studies of reproduction, and inspired theoretically by phenomenology and affect theory, this research offers an alternative perspective on (Irish) abortion politics, studying the intimate, embodied experiences of women and people living under Ireland’s constitutional abortion ban. Employing a qualitative research methodology based on in-depth interviews with abortion activists, this research attempts to locate activists in their embodied and affective experiences, to explore how they live, negotiate and mobilise against the (effects of the) country’s abortion ban in their everyday lives.

The thesis is divided into eight chapters. Chapter One contextualises the movement to repeal the 8th amendment within Irish history and in relation to contemporary global trends in abortion rights, whilst Chapter Two clarifies the theoretical and methodological frameworks this research adopts. Chapters Three through Seven take a chronological approach, exploring activists’ experiences of growing up under the 8th amendment, their embodied and affective experiences as part of the movement for abortion rights in Ireland, and examines how the intimate, bodily, reproductive lives of Irish abortion activists have been transformed since the constitutional abortion ban was repealed in May 2018. Chapter Eight considers the limitations of this project and outlines several key areas for future research on this topic.

Overall, this research proposes the concept of ‘abortion work’ to illustrate how structures of reproductive inequality are inscribed and felt at the level of the embodied, reproductive subject. I put forward the concept of ‘abortion work’ as a form of invisiblised, reproductive labour which is unevenly imposed on women and other gestational subjects. With this concept, I aim to describe the emotional, psychological, and physical labour associated with planning for and navigating access to clandestine abortions both within and outside of the Irish State. Finally, this research introduces the concept of the ‘embodied consequences’ of social movements for reproductive rights, to analyse the intersectional politics of ‘cathartic breathing’ and activist ‘burnout’ post-repeal of the 8th amendment, and to propose that social movements for abortion rights are motivated not only by a desire to secure legal access to abortion care but to transform hegemonic modes of gendered and reproductive embodiment.