Resistances to sexual and gender rights are shifting and need new theorisations. This article develops the analytical concept of heteroactivism by exploring its relation to abortion debates in Ireland. Heteroactivism as an analytical category examines resistances to sexual and gender rights that seek to reiterate the place of the heteronormative family (both in terms of gender norms and heterosexuality) through activisms that can stand against new legislative orders. The article investigates three texts to explore how the ‘Vote No’ campaign in (...) Ireland discussed ‘loving both’, but in the main thrust of the poster campaign instead focused on the foetus as an ‘unborn child’. Using textual and visual analysis, we show the creation of Ireland through seeking to ‘love both’ and create a distinction from the dangers, and foreign contagion, of England. The article concludes by arguing that ongoing work is needed to explore heteroactivism and its diverse manifestations, including in abortion debates. (shrink)

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In the context of Ireland’s new legislation governing abortion, I outline and examine the spatial consequences of political decision-making. I argue that Ireland’s new abortion law and its clinical guidance permit travel for some pregnant people but impose fixity on others. I analyse the spatial consequences of legal limitations, including non-medically necessary delays in care and medical control of medication abortions, that necessitate travel for abortion. I demonstrate how current laws fix some pregnant people in place, including diverse migrant populations (...) within Ireland, with no possibilities for abortion-related travel. This critique of the ‘new’ law demonstrates the Irish state’s continued political and medical control of abortion. (shrink)

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