‘Her choice of course’: Negotiating legitimacy of ‘choice’ in abortion rights deliberations during the ‘Repeal the Eighth’ movement in Ireland

Abstract

Discourses of ‘choice’ are routinely involved in sexual and reproductive rights’ advocacy. In this article, we offer a discursive psychological examination of how ‘choice’ is oriented to, in online deliberations on the ongoing movement for abortion rights in Ireland. Comment posters treated ‘choice’ as involving outcomes of and motives for choosing, in negotiating legitimacy of women’s rights to choose. These accompanied alternative versions of women, either as independent or as intimately bound up with pregnancy/motherhood, which were flexibly used in negotiation legitimacy of women’s rights to ‘choice’ in abortion practices. Choice advocacy is then situated in particular discursive practices.

Keywords

abortion discourse analysis Ireland right to choose sexual health

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Antaki

Wetherell

(1999) Show concessions. Discourse Studies 1(1): 7–27.

Berer

(2013) Termination of pregnancy as emergency obstetric care: The interpretation of Catholic health policy and the consequences for pregnant women. Reproductive Health Matters 21(41): 9–17.

Billig

(1987) Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Billig

(1988) The notion of ‘prejudice’: Some rhetorical and ideological aspects. Text 8(1–2): 91–110.

Citizens’ Assembly (2016) About the citizens’ assembly. Available at: https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/About-the-Citizens-Assembly/ (accessed 20 March 2017).

Coleman

(2002) Promoting sexual health and responsible sexual behavior: An introduction. Journal of Sex Research 39(1): 1–6.

de Zúñiga

Veenstra

Vraga

et al . (2010) Digital democracy: Reimagining pathways to political participation. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 7(1): 36–51.

Deak

Saroglou

(2015) Opposing abortion, gay adoption, euthanasia, and suicide. Archive for the Psychology of Religion 37(3): 267–294.

Dillon

(1996) Cultural differences in the abortion discourse of the Catholic Church: Evidence from four countries. Sociology of Religion 57(1): 25–36.

10.

Drew

Holt

(1988) Complainable matters: The use of idiomatic expressions in making complaints. Social Problems 35(4): 398–417.

11.

Eglin

Hester

(1999) ‘You’re all a bunch of feminists’: Categorization and the politics of terror in the Montreal Massacre. Human Studies 22(2–4): 253–272.

12.

Freedman

Isaacs

(1993) Human rights and reproductive choice. Studies in Family Planning 24(1): 18–30.

13.

Gilmartin

White

(2011) Interrogating medical tourism: Ireland, abortion, and mobility rights. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36(2): 275–280.

14.

Grice

Braun

(2017) Indigenous (Māori) perspectives on abortion in New Zealand. Feminism & Psychology 27(2): 144–162.

15.

Gürsoy

(1996) Abortion in Turkey: A matter of state, family or individual decision. Social Science & Medicine 42(4): 531–542.

16.

Holland

(2012) Woman ‘denied a termination’ dies in hospital. Available at: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/woman-denied-a-termination-dies-in-hospital-1.551412

17.

Hughes

(2002) Key Concepts in Feminist Theory and Research. London: SAGE.

18.

Hutchby

(2001) Technologies, texts and affordances. Sociology 35(2): 441–456.

19.

Jefferson

(1990) List construction as a task and interactional resource. In: Psathas

(ed.) Interactional Competence. Washington, DC: University Press of America, pp. 63–92.

20.

Journalie

(2014) Explainer: What is the 8th amendment? Available at: http://www.thejournal.ie/what-is-the-eight-amendment-abortion-1625596-Aug2014/ (accessed 5 May 2017).

21.

Katz

Tirone

(2015) From the agency line to the picket line: Neoliberal ideals, sexual realities, and arguments about abortion in the U.S. Sex Roles 73(7): 311–318.

22.

Keerrigan

MacCarvill

(2016) 10 Insights from the second annual reuters digital news report for Ireland. Available at: https://digitalblog.rte.ie/2016/06/17/10-insights-from-the-second-annual-reuters-digital-news-report-for-ireland/ (accessed 7 May 2017).

23.

Kirkman

Rowe

Hardiman

et al . (2011) Abortion is a difficult solution to a problem: A discursive analysis of interviews with women considering or undergoing abortion in Australia. Women’s Studies International Forum 34(2): 121–129.

24.

Leask

(2015) An exceptional choice? Australian Feminist Studies 30(84): 179–198.

25.

McCulloch

Weatherall

(2017) The fragility of de facto abortion on demand in New Zealand Aotearoa. Feminism & Psychology 27(1): 92–100.

26.

McGreevy

(2017) Citizens’ Assembly backs abortion rights in wide range of circumstances. Available at: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/citizens-assembly-backs-abortion-rights-in-wide-range-of-circumstances-1.3058170 (accessed on 10 August 2017).

27.

McKinlay

McVittie

(2008) Social Psychology and Discourse. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

28.

Macleod

Sigcau

Luwaca

(2011) Culture as a discursive resource opposing legal abortion. Critical Public Health 21(2): 237–245.

29.

Martin

(2000) Death of a nation: Transnationalism, bodies and abortion in late twentieth-century Ireland. In: Meyer

(ed.) Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation. London: Routledge, pp. 65–88.

30.

Morgan

(2009) Icons of Life: A Cultural History of Human Embryos. Berkely: University of California Press.

31.

Oaks

(2002) ‘Abortion is part of the Irish experience, it is part of what we are’: The transformation of public discourses on Irish abortion policy. Women’s Studies International Forum 25(3): 315–333.

32.

Oaks

(2003) Antiabortion positions and young women’s life plans in contemporary Ireland. Social Science & Medicine 56(9): 1973–1986.

33.

Orbach

(1993) Hunger Strike: The Anorectic’s Struggle as a Metaphor for Our Age. London: Penguin Books.

34.

Pomerantz

(1986) Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies 9: 219–230.

35.

Potter

(1996) Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric, and Social Construction. London: SAGE.

36.

Potter

Wiggins

(2007) Discursive psychology. In: Willig

Stainton-Rogers

(eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology. London: SAGE, pp. 73–90.

37.

Psathas

(1999) Studying the organization in action: Membership categorization and interaction analysis. Human Studies 22(2–4): 139–162.

38.

Randall

(1986) The politics of abortion in Ireland. In: Lovenduski

Outshoorn

(eds) Sage Studies in Modern Politics. London: SAGE, pp. 67–85.

39.

Ravindran

Balasubramanian

(2004) ‘Yes’ to abortion but ‘No’ to sexual rights: The paradoxical reality of married women in rural Tamil Nadu, India. Reproductive Health Matters 12(23): 88–99.

40.

Repeal Eighth (2017) The eighth amendment. Available at: http://www.repealeight.ie/background-to-eighth-amendment/ (accessed 10 August 2017).

41.

Sacks

(1992) Lectures on Conversation (ed Jefferson

). Oxford: Blackwell.

42.

Seymour-Smith

(2015) Applying discursive approaches to health psychology. Health Psychology 34(4): 371–380.

43.

Shellenberg

Moore

Bankole

et al . (2011) Social stigma and disclosure about induced abortion: Results from an exploratory study. Global Public Health 6(Suppl. 1): S111–S125.

44.

Smyth

(2017) Abortion and Nation: The Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland. London: Routledge.

45.

Stokoe

(2010) ‘I’m not gonna hit a lady’: Conversation analysis, membership categorization and men’s denials of violence towards women. Discourse & Society 21(1): 59–82.

46.

Willig

(2001) Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology. London: SAGE.