After The Review: Law, abortion, reform and the legacies of information restrictions

In 2018, the Irish electorate voted to remove the text of Article 40.3.3° that enshrined an equal right to life for foetal life to that of the 'mother' from the Constitution. This created an impetus for the Irish government to reassess the existing abortion information legislative framework. Until then, laws regulating information access were embedded in, and reenforcing of, anti-abortion ideologies. Information was treated in law as a strategic tool for reducing the number of people who chose abortion and as a potential threat to vulnerable subjects and the anti-abortion status quo. Much of the prohibitory and paternalistic governance of information was repealed with the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018. However, it is apparent from within the law, and the accounts of those who experienced or provided post-2018 abortion care, that the ideologies behind decades of anti-abortion information controls were not fully dispelled through the legalisation of abortion. There remains care-related issues due to the mandatory waiting period, criminalisation and issues with the boundaries of conscientious objection. To facilitate an abortion service that is truly abortion seeker-centred, the legacy of anti-abortion information controls needs to be acknowledged and worked against in legal and policy spaces.