Pills & Protest: Abortion Access in Ireland

— available July 10th, 2025 from Bloomsbury Academic Press —

REVIEWS of PILLS & PROTEST

“McCaffrey documents the compelling struggle for Irish legal abortion, providing vivid ethnographic descriptions of both individual experiences and advocacy campaigns. Divided women’s movements used the technology of abortion pills to transform both private access and public protest, as advocates, physicians, and politicians transformed a stigmatized and secretive act into a routinized procedure. This is an important account!” —Rayna Rapp, New York University

“McCaffrey’s impressive ethnography invites readers into the indisputably creative and successful social movements in and beyond Ireland that strategized to provide access to abortion pills even when abortion was banned.” —Laury Oaks, University of California, Santa Barbara

“Brenna McCaffrey’s thoughtful and nuanced book traces the struggles and victories of the abortion pill networks and activists. Through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with activists, McCaffrey unravels how abortion pills transformed from “contraband” smuggled into Ireland into objects of intense political interest, eventually contributing to the historical expansion of abortion rights in Ireland. A highly recommended read.” —Joanna Mishtal, Lehigh University

“Through rich ethnographic research, McCaffrey’s Pills and Protest explores the crucial, multi-faceted and sometimes contentious role of medication abortion in the campaign for legal abortion in Ireland, unravelling timely and important lessons for pro-choice strategizing beyond Irish borders in a moment of global backlash to reproductive rights.” —Aideen O’Shaughnessy, University of Lincoln

“Interesting investigation on the history of the abortion pill and how the battle fought by the movement for reproductive justice in Ireland over recent decades was influenced by - and responded to - changing abortion practices. Using lots of direct interviews with activists and service providers within that movement both north and south, differing perspectives towards accessing the new abortion pills in the absence of legislation are explored. This timely book captures the role played by the abortion pill in shaping abortion services in Ireland once legislation was eventually enacted in 2018.” —Ursula Barry, University College Dublin

“McCaffrey provides a gripping account of how activists in Ireland mobilized new ‘technologies of protest’ to transform access to abortion. This timely book is essential for those navigating abortion restrictions in the U.S., revealing the power of grassroots organizing in the fight for reproductive rights and justice.” —Kathleen Broussard, University of South Carolina