Camilla Fitzsimons - Repealed: Ireland’s Unfinished Fight for Reproductive Rights

An indispensable and compelling read, showing how feminist organising changes law and changes activists.

Mirad Enright, Reader in Feminist Legal Studies, University of Birmingham and a founding member of Lawyers for Choice

A call-to-arms in the on-going global fight for abortion access and reproductive justice.

Brd Smith TD, People Before Profit

Irelands Unfinished Fight
for Reproductive Rights

Camilla Fitzsimons
With Sinad Kennedy

Foreword by Ruth Coppinger

First published 2021 by Pluto Press

New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA www.plutobooks.com

Copyright Camilla Fitzsimons 2021

The right of Camilla Fitzsimons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 4428 7 Hardback

ISBN 978 0 7453 4427 0 Paperback

ISBN 978 0 7453 4431 7 PDF

ISBN 978 0 7453 4429 4 EPUB

Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England

The history of this movement really needs to acknowledge all the people involved nationwide that helped get the Eighth Amendment repealed. Not just the figureheads. Local people in local areas helped this to pass.

I would love to say much more but I have to get the children to bed!

Member of ARC and Parents for Choice (2020)

What aspects of Together for Yes are working well results 2018 (response rate 94%)

What aspects of Together for Yes are not working well, results 2018 (response rate 88%)

What are your thoughts on the way things have panned out in terms of access to abortion and reproductive rights more broadly results 2020 (response rate 96%)

There were so many people who authored this book. Thanks to Sinad Kennedy, not just for her contributions, but for her tireless efforts for as long as I can remember. Thanks to Melisa Halpin, Helen Guinane and Sinad Redmond, Paula Dennan, Laura Fitzgerald and Emma Quinn, Emma Campbell, Ailbhe Smyth, JoAnne Neary, Helen Stonehouse, Emma Hendrick, TFMR, START, Emily Wazak and Cristina Florescu, TENI, Limerick Feminist Network, SARRA, Fingal Feminist Network, Abortion Action Campaign West, and Emma Carroll and Ciara McGuane who created In Our Shoes. There are many others too who answered the phone and replied to emails and allowed me to bounce ideas off them. Thanks to the artist Maser who made his iconic repeal image available for others to use and which has been adapted for the cover of this book. And to Paula Geraghty who has been filming and sharing street activism for decades. To my editor Neda Tehrani, thank you. I learned an enormous amount from your astute observations, and suggestions for change. Thanks also to the team at Pluto Press for their work, and the copy-editor, Jeanne Brady.