This book reframes the Irish abortion narrative within the history of women's reproductive
health and explores the similarities and differences that shaped the history of abortion within
the two states on the island of Ireland. Since the legalisation of abortion in Britain in 1967
an estimated 200 000 women have travelled from Ireland to England for an abortion. However
this abortion trail is at least a century old and began with women migrating to Britain to flee
moral intolerance in Ireland towards unmarried mothers and their offspring. This study
highlights how attitudes to unmarried motherhood reflected a broader cultural acceptance that
morality should trump concerns regarding maternal health. This rationale bled into social and
political responses to birth control and abortion and was underpinned by an acknowledgement
that in prioritising morality some women would die.
