NARRATIVES OF IRISHNESS AND THE PROBLEM OF ABORTION - THE X-CASE 1992

This paper considers the ways in which discourses of abortion and disc ourses of national identity were constructed and reproduced through th e events of the X case in the Republic of Ireland in 1992. This case i nvolved a state injunction against a 14-year-old rape victim and her p arents, to prevent them from obtaining an abortion in Britain. By exam ining the controversy the case gave rise to in the national press, I w ill argue that the terms of abortion politics in Ireland shifted from arguments based on rights to arguments centred on national identity, t hrough the questions the X case raised about women's citizenship statu s, and women's position in relation to the nation and the state. Disco urses of national identity and discourses of abortion shifted away fro m entrenched traditional positions, towards more liberal articulations .