CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Breslin, Danielle Laura |
|---|---|
| Title | An Intimate Public: Fear, Shame and Medical Abortion in Irish Media (1985 - 2015) |
| Summary | In this thesis, I argue that an intimate public elaborated itself through narratives of fear and shame in relation to coverage of (illegal) medical abortion use in Irish media, provoking historico-cultural anxieties around the female body and the place of the family in society, whilst also opening up new avenues for negotiating questions of women’s bodily autonomy and agency in ways which had not been possible before. While scholars of cultural theory have written extensively on gender and abortion politics in relation to Ireland, none have considered how national narratives of fear and shame in the media established and proliferated medical abortion use as a site for the reproduction of idealized gendered and national identity. Similarly, no research has of yet considered the significance of the medical abortion phenomenon as a transformative moment in the history of Irish abortion politics. Tracing the developments of illegal medical abortion use in Ireland through media reports on the topic from 1985 – 2015, I use affect theory and feminist theories of nationalism to close read texts on the subject in the years preceding news of its increasing illegal use in Ireland and thereafter until 2015. Tracing the work that emotion performs in this intimate public allows for the scrutiny of prevailing constructions of gender and iterations of national belonging which affirm the fantasies of the (re)productive nation. Attending to these processes, particularly as they relate to the (re)production of national norms, enables the deconstruction of cultural imperatives in place on gender and national identity in Ireland. Furthermore, my analysis not only shows the extent to which abortion politics have shifted in Ireland in relation to the medical abortion phenomenon, but also provide important indications and potential warnings for how such politics might continue to unfold, even with the repeal of the Eighth amendment. |
| Supervisor | Renkin, Hadley J., Sanchez Espinosa, Adelina |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/breslin_danielle.pdf |
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