My Body My Choice: Abortion Rights Activism Across the Globe

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The Repeal movement was one of the most important political and social movements in Irish history. It involved tens of thousands of activists from every corner of the island making the case for women to be allowed to make decisions for themselves, about their own bodies, their own health and well-being.

As we enter the final stages of the Government’s Abortion Review, we want to explore the challenges that remain since Repeal and hear how the struggle to widen access across the island of Ireland is part of a global movement for women and pregnant people’s reproductive rights.

Join us to hear from brave human rights defenders who are persecuted for their work on abortion access in Poland. Join us to learn how you can be part of the campaign for abortion rights at home.

This event features guest speakers Ailbhe Smyth,  Emma Campbell and Justyna Wydrzyńska. Ailbhe Smyth is  long-time feminist,  LGBTQ+ campaigner and the former founding head of Women’s Studies at UCD. Ailbhe co-founded and led the Coalition to Repeal the 8th, and was co-Director of Together for Yes, the national Civil Society Campaign to remove the 8th Amendment from the Irish constitution. Emma is co-convenor of Alliance for Choice and a core campaigner since 2011, helping secure decriminalisation of abortion as a part of the movement. 

Justyna Wydrzyńska is woman human rights defender and founder of the website Women on the Net, Poland’s first online forum supporting women seeking safe abortions, contraception or sex education. She currently works with Abortion Dream Team (ADT), a grass roots initiative of four women human rights defenders who came together in October 2016 with the goal of providing direct and immediate assistance to women who needed abortions.

Abortion in Chile is legal in the following cases: when the mother’s life is at risk, when the fetus will not survive the pregnancy, and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (14 weeks, if the woman is under 14 years old) in the case of rape. However, these scenarios account for only about three percent of the thousands of clandestine abortions taking place in the country, according to activists. Between 1989 and 2017, Chile had one of the most restrictive abortion policies in the world, criminalizing its practice without exception. Abortion on these grounds was approved by the National Congress in August 2017, and came into force a month later, following a constitutional challenge brought by the conservative opposition. Medical coverage in the public and private sector became available on these ground in January 2018.

National Women’s Council of Ireland

The National Women’s Council of Ireland’s (NWCI) mission is to lead and to be a catalyst in the achievement of equality for women. They are the leading national representative organisation for women and women’s groups in Ireland. A non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation, founded in 1973, they seek to achieve equality for women. They represent and take their mandate from over 180 member groups from across a diversity of backgrounds, sectors and geographical locations. They also have a growing number of individual members who support the campaign for women’s equality in Ireland.

Their mandate is to take action to ensure that the voices of women in all their diversity are heard. Their vision is of an Ireland and of a world where women can achieve their full potential in a just and equal society.

Front Line Defenders

Front Line Defenders was founded in Dublin in 2001 with the specific aim of protecting human rights defenders at risk (HRDs), people who work, non-violently, for any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Front Line Defenders addresses the protection needs identified by HRDs themselves. Front Line Defenders maintains its headquarters in Dublin, an EU Office in Brussels, and regionally-based field staff in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Europe & Central Asia, and the Middle East.

Front Line Defenders provides rapid and practical support to human rights defenders at risk through: international advocacy on behalf of human rights defenders at risk, including emergency support for those in immediate danger; grants to pay for the practical security needs of human rights defenders; trainings and resource materials on security and protection, including digital security; rest, respite and other opportunities for human rights defenders dealing with extreme stress; opportunities for networking and exchange between human rights defenders, including at the biennial Dublin Platform; the annual Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk; an emergency 24-hour phone line for human rights defenders operating in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

In emergency situations Front Line Defenders can facilitate temporary relocation of human rights defenders.

Front Line Defenders promotes strengthened international and regional measures to protect human rights defenders through support for the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders.  Support for the office of the Special Rapporteur is also made through the Frank Jennings Internship Programme. Front Line Defenders promotes respect for the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Front Line Defenders has Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Front Line Defenders has partnership status with the Council of Europe. Front Line Defenders has Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and supports the work of the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights by providing an intern on an annual basis.

Speakers:

Ailbhe Smyth, former Co-Director, Together for Yes

Emma Campbell, Co-Convenor, Alliance for Choice

Justyna Wydrzyńska, Founder, Women on the Net, and member, Abortion Dream Team (ADT)

Lieta Vivaldi Macho, lawyer and university professor, Chile

Speaker Biographies:

Ailbhe Smyth is a long-time feminist and LGBTQ+ campaigner and the former founding head of Women’s Studies at UCD. Ailbhe co-founded and led the Coalition to Repeal the 8^th, and was co-Director of Together for Yes, the national Civil Society Campaign to remove the 8th Amendment from the Irish constitution. She was also a member of the Strategic Executive of the referendum campaign for marriage equality in 2015. A pro-choice activist since the early 1970s, she has campaigned in all of the Irish abortion referendums. In 2022, Ailbhe was conferred with the Freedom of the City of Dublin.  

Emma is co-convenor of Alliance for Choice and a core campaigner since 2011, helping secure decriminalisation of abortion as a part of the movement.  She also actively supports women and pregnant people through their abortions as a doula with Lucht Cabhrach (pronounced lu-kt, cow-rack). Emma is completing her practice-based PhD addressing photography as an activist tool for abortion rights, at Ulster University. Emma is also a member of the Turner Prize winning Array Collective and has exhibited in international solo and group shows.

Justyna Wydrzyńska is woman human rights defender and founder of the website Women on the Net, Poland’s first online forum supporting women seeking safe abortions, contraception or sex education. She currently works with Abortion Dream Team (ADT), a grass roots initiative of four women human rights defenders who came together in October 2016 with the goal of providing direct and immediate assistance to women who needed abortions.

Lieta Vivaldi Macho is a lawyer and university professor from Chile. She studied as a lawyer in the University of Chile, has a Diploma in Gender and Violence from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Chile, a Masters in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a PhD in Sociology from Goldsmiths University, which is part of the University of London. She currently conducts research at the Human Rights Center of the Diego Portales University. She is also a research associate at the Center for the Study of Applied Ethics of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of the University of Chile. Lieta is also the director of the Gender, Law and Social Justice program at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on gender, sociology and law.

Lieta is specialised in human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, legal sociology, biopolitics, ethics and feminisms. Her doctoral thesis was Abortion in Chile: Biopolitics and Contemporary Feminist Resistance, and she has published several articles and book chapters on biopolitics, feminisms, bioethics, human rights, among others.

In 2018, Lieta worked as a Researcher on a project titled “Women travelling to seek abortion care in Europe”, funded by the European Research Council and University of Barcelona, and in 2016, she was a Co-investigator in a project on experiences in Chile concerning malformed fetuses incompatible with life at the Universidad Diego Portales, which was presented at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

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