Toward abortion decriminalization: Irish abortion activism and the power of legal ambivalence
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This article explores the role of feminist legal ambivalence in Irish abortion activism, arguing for its continued relevance after the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. Legal ambivalence, which involves a combination of skepticism and engagement with the law, has long been a feature of feminist theory due to the law's role in maintaining patriarchal norms. In the context of Irish abortion advocacy, this ambivalence has provided strategic advantages. Early resistance from the Irish Church and State led activists to approach legal reforms with caution, fostering a productive ambivalence that facilitated actions such as accessing abortions abroad and employing art-based protests. The article outlines how this nuanced stance toward the law evolved over time, benefiting feminist and reproductive rights activism. It argues that Irish abortion advocates should capitalize on this history by advocating for the full decriminalization of abortion. This strategy, the article suggests, carries symbolic power, has been proven advantageous in other countries, and is both pragmatic and feasible in Ireland. Ultimately, the article calls for a continued embrace of legal ambivalence as a tool to challenge restrictive laws and advance reproductive freedom.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.012 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.050 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.010 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".