Women's Legal Landmarks

Women’s Legal Landmarks

Celebrating the History of Women and Law in the UK and Ireland

Edited by Erika Rackley and Rosemary Auchmuty

HART PUBLISHING Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Kemp House , Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford , OX2 9PH , UK

HART PUBLISHING, the Hart/Stag logo, BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Reprinted 2019 Copyright © The editors and contributors severally 2019 The editors and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identiﬁ ed as Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. While every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of this work, no responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of any statement in it can be accepted by the authors, editors or publishers. All UK Government legislation and other public sector information used in the work is Crown Copyright © . All House of Lords and House of Commons information used in the work is Parliamentary Copyright © . This information is reused under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 ( http://www. nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 ) except where otherwise stated. All Eur-lex material used in the work is © European Union, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/ , 1998–2019.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Names: Rackley, Erika, editor. | Auchmuty, Rosemary, editor. Title: Women’s legal landmarks : celebrating the history of women and law in the UK and Ireland / edited by Erika Rackley and Rosemary Auchmuty. Description: Oxford, UK ; Portland, Oregon : Hart Publishing, 2019. Identifi ers: LCCN 2018034445 (print) | LCCN 2018035208 (ebook) | ISBN 9781782259787 (Epub) | ISBN 9781782259770 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Women—Legal status, laws, etc.—Great Britain—History. | Women—Legal status, laws, etc.—Ireland—History. Classifi cation: LCC KD734 (ebook) | LCC KD734 .W664 2018 (print) | DDC 342.4108/78—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034445 ISBN: HB: 978-1-78225-977-0 ePDF: 978-1-78225-979-4 ePub: 978-1-78225-978-7 Typeset by Compuscript Ltd, Shannon Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall To fi nd out more about our authors and books visit www.hartpublishing.co.uk . Here you will fi nd extracts, author information, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. 92 Th irty-sixth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, 2018

FIONA DE LONDRAS

On 25 May 2018 Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution was repealed by majority vote in a referendum. Th e provision, introduced in 1983 and known as ‘ the 8th Amendment ’ , imposed a near- absolute ban on abortion in Ireland as a result of its recognition of the ‘ right to life of the unborn … with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother’ . Subsequent amend- ments introduced in 1992 ameliorated some of the worst eff ects of the provision by allowing for a right to travel to access medical services that were legal abroad, and a right to information on such services, albeit on a very tightly regulated basis. On 29 January 2018 the Irish Government announced that a referendum would be held to repeal Article 40.3.3 and replace it with the 36th Amendment to the Constitution ( ‘ Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancies’ ). In March 2018 the Oireachtas passed the Th irty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution Bill 2018, and the referendum took place on 25 May 2018. Once certifi ed by the President (when all legal challenges to the referendum have been concluded), this will be followed by the introduction of new legislation allowing for lawful abortion in Ireland. Th e proposed new law would allow abortion without restriction as to reason up to 12 weeks, where there is a risk to the pregnant person’ s life or a risk of seri- ous harm to her health aft er 12 weeks and until foetal viability, and in cases of fatal foetal anomaly without gestational time limit. Th is will replace the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 , which only allows abortion where there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the pregnant person. It will also repeal legislation that censors, prohibits, and regulates abortion information. 1

I. Context

Abortion has been a crime throughout the entire existence of the Irish state. Until 2013 this was by means of the Off ences against the Person Act 1861. Criminalisation was reaffi rmed in section 22 of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013.

1 Regulation of Information (Services Outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act 1995, s 16; Censorship Act 1929, s 7; Censorship Act 1946. 652 Fiona de Londras

In 1983 the 8th Amendment was put to the People following a concerted eff ort by the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign, which leveraged the dominance of the Catholic Church, the intense conservatism of politics, medicine and law, and a period of extreme political instability to extract a promise from the Government that a referendum would be held. So strong was their infl uence that the referendum went ahead even though the proposed wording was opposed by the then Attorney General, Peter Sutherland, who expressed concerns about its lack of clarity and its potential to place Ireland in breach of its international human rights obligations in the future. 2 A majority voted in favour of its installation in the Constitution. Th is provision had signifi cant political and legal impacts that greatly restricted the reproductive agency of women in Ireland. Contraception only became legal in 1979,3 and then only for bona fi de family planning purposes (in practice, only for married women whose husbands consented). Women who became pregnant when unmarried were still routinely confi ned to carceral institutions such as Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes.4 In that socially repressive context, the 8th Amendment was both a backlash against the limited gains of women ’ s liberation movements and a pre-emptive strike against any further such gains. It meant, in political terms, that even if the Oireachtas wanted to make abortion legal in anything other than the most limited circumstances of near-certain death for the pregnant woman it could not; any such legislation would be challenged and struck down as unconstitutional. It also meant that successive Governments could (and did) abrogate responsibility for this essen- tial part of reproductive healthcare, not even providing bereavement counselling for people who travelled to end a pregnancy following a diagnosis of a fatal foetal anomaly until 2016 when the UN Human Rights Committee found that Irish law violated the right to be free from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 5 Th e legal impacts were also signifi cant. In spite of claims to the contrary during the 1983 referendum campaign, court cases were brought to ensure that the 8th Amendment would isolate women in crisis pregnancy to the greatest extent possible. Th e Society for the Protection of Unborn Children successfully litigated to ensure that foetal rights could be vindicated at the suit of someone not directly involved in a case because of the public inter- est involved in protecting unborn life, and also succeeded in securing injunctions against the provision of any kind of information or assistance to women about abortion services elsewhere.6 Women ’ s health initiatives such as Open Door Counselling and the Well Woman Centre were prevented from supporting women in making appointments for abortion in the UK.7 Student activists – including Ivana Bacik, who contributes to this volume – were

2 Peter Sutherland ’ s 1983 advice on the 8th Amendment, published in the Irish Times , 13 January 2018. 3 Health (Family Planning) Act 1979 . 4 Concluding Observations of the UN Committee against Torture, Recommendation to Ireland Regarding the Magdalene Laundries (2011) . 5 UN Human Rights Committee, Mellet v Ireland, Comm No 2324/2013, UN Doc CCPR/C/116/D/2324/2013 (17 November 2016). 6 Attorney General (ex rel Th e Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Ireland Ltd) v Open Door Counselling Limited and the Dublin Wellwoman Centre Ltd [ 1988 ] 1 IR 593 ; Case C-159/90, Th e Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Ireland Ltd v Grogan [ 1991 ] ECR I-4685 . 7 ibid. Th irty-sixth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, 2018 653 threatened with imprisonment for printing the contact details of abortion clinics in student union publications. Women and girls were stopped at ports if they were considered to be travelling for abortion. Legally, pregnancy was a trap from which a woman could not escape, or at least not without undertaking signifi cant illegal activity. Activist groups such as the Women’ s Information Network and the Irish Women’ s Abortion Support Group did what they could subversively to distribute information, providing material and moral support to women who travelled to England for abortion. However, basic amenities such as telephones were not yet available in every home (sometimes not even every village), and many women were simply forced to continue with their pregnancies. Th e harrowing reality of the impact of the 8th Amendment was made clear to all in 1992 when the High Court enjoined a teenage girl, who had been the victim of rape and was suicidal, from travelling for an abortion. In the High Court’ s estimation, the certain death of the foetus in abortion outweighed the possible death of the girl by suicide, which could be averted by the provision of appropriate care. Th e X Case , as it is known, led to mass public demonstrations and outrage. Famously, the Martyn Turner cartoon in the Irish Times – a cultural staple of Irish political and newspaper life – depicted a young girl hold- ing a teddy bear, in an Ireland surrounded by a fortress, with the caption ‘ 17th February 1992 – the introduction of internment in Ireland … for 14 year old girls’ . Th e Supreme Court then found that abortion was legal under the 8th Amendment where there was a ‘ real and substantial risk to the life as distinct from the health ’ of the pregnant person, and that risk to life could include a risk of suicide.8 Since then, anti-abortion campaigners have focused on eff orts to reverse this: to say that suicide is not a risk to life that would allow for legal abortion. Th e People rejected such a reversal twice – in 1992 and 2002 – but even in the debates on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, the implicit assumption that women would pretend to be suicidal – and that doctors would believe them – in order to access abortion was propagated.9 Th e 2013 Act made it considerably harder to access abortion in cases of suicidal ideation than in cases of risk to life from physical illness. Although information and travel were constitutionally protected by referenda that directly followed the X Case described above, these rights were not positively constructed. Th e state would not stop someone from travelling for abortion, but it would not help either, no matter how poor, sick or isolated a pregnant person was. Women who did travel oft en did so alone, in secrecy. During abortion travel they were vulnerable to abusive partners, and to predators who knew that Irish women who came for abortion oft en did so in secret, and that if they assaulted them the women would never tell because nobody knew they had travelled for abortion. Many women who told of their abortion experiences reported realising that if something went wrong nobody would know because they had not told anyone where they were. Activism helps: the Abortion Support Network provides funds, support, beds and assistance to women who seek it. Networks of activists across the island of Ireland also help. Th e online availability of the abortion pill means that thousands of Irish women self-medicate, either getting pills from Women on

8 Attorney General v X [ 1992 ] 1 IR 1 . 9 See eg Brian Walsh TD, D á il Debates, 10 July 2013 and further discussion of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 in this collection. 654 Fiona de Londras

Web or Women Help Women, sometimes delivered to Northern Ireland and then brought to the Republic through an activist trail, or from activist networks acting illegally in Ireland. In practice, abortion is available, but a crime. Th e 8th Amendment impacted all pregnancies. Th e state’ s duty under the 8th Amendment to defend and vindicate the right to life of the unborn, deployed in the patriarchal and sometimes violent context of obstetric medicine, meant that women were oft en directly or indirectly threatened with court action if they tried to make decisions about pregnancy considered to endanger foetal life or health. Women who sought natural labour against the advice of their doctors were sometimes brought to court to seek orders compelling C-sections. 10 Pregnant women are still the only category of adults with capacity who do not have the right to refuse consent to medical treatment in Ireland. 11 Th e 8th Amendment made pregnancy a profoundly diminishing experience for women; for the duration of a pregnancy the state’ s only duty to a woman was to ensure that she was still alive at the end of the pregnancy. Her bodily integrity, privacy, right to information, sense of self, autonomy and agency were all subordinated to the constitutional right to life of the foetus.12

II. Th e Landmark

In 1983, the Anti-Amendment Campaign, led by barrister Catherine Forde, forecast that the 8th Amendment would harm women. Th e Campaign, and activists in the women ’ s movement who supported it, agitated constantly for the whole 35 years of the 8th ’ s existence for its repeal. Th en, in the early 2010s, this activism began to become a social movement. Th e death of Savita Halappanavar, who died from sepsis during a miscarriage in 2011, mobilised new activists to demand change articulated in a simple but profoundly powerful word: REPEAL. Th e Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) swelled in numbers. Th e March for Choice became a yearly show of strength with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets. Th e Coalition to Repeal the 8th was founded, bringing together dozens of inter- est groups, from trades unions to pro-choice groups across professions (doctors, lawyers, pharmacists etc). Th ere were signifi cant artistic interventions, and fi rst-person narrative projects aiming to de-stigmatise abortion. 13 People began to buy and wear merchandise (most notably the black sweaters with white ‘ REPEAL ’ decal designed by Anna Cosgrave), and Irish diaspora organised to mobilise signifi cant international solidarity (for example, the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign). 14 Pro-choice politicians began to speak out, sometimes from unexpected places such as local politics and the back benches of conservative Fine Gael, as well as from well- established socialist and feminist pockets of Irish politics: Independent TDs and Senators,

10 Health Service Executive v B [ 2016 ] IEHC 605 . 11 HSE, National Consent Policy (2014, revised May 2016). 12 Fiona de Londras and Mairead Enright , Repealing the 8th: Reforming Irish Abortion Law ( Policy Press , 2018 ) , chapter 1. 13 See, eg, Jesse Jones, Tremble Tremble (57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia); Sarah Maria Griffi n, ‘ We Face this Land ’ (2016); x-ile ( http://www.x-ileproject.com ); Everyday Stories ( http:// everydaystories.org ). 14 London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign: https://londonirisharc.com . Th irty-sixth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, 2018 655 the Labour Party, Solidarity, People Before Profi t, the Anti Austerity Alliance. 15 In the General Election campaign of 2016, all political parties apart from Fianna F á il addressed the 8th Amendment in their manifestos, promising everything from repeal and the introduction of lawful abortion in some or all circumstances (Labour, Sinn F é in, Anti-Austerity Alliance, People Before Profi t, Green Party), to the establishment of some form of delibera- tive assembly to discuss potential constitutional and/or legislative change (Fine Gael, Social Democrats; such a proposal was also endorsed by Fianna F á il leader, Miche á l Martin, in a radio interview during the campaign). Following an indecisive election a Fine Gael-led Government was formed, with a small number of Independent deputies joining Cabinet in ministerial roles, including long-time social justice advocate Katherine Zappone, who had made repeal part of her election mani- festo. As a result, the Programme for Partnership Government included a commitment to establish a ‘ Citizens ’ Assembly’ to discuss, inter alia, the future of the 8th Amendment.16 Th e Citizens’ Assembly comprised 99 people selected from the electoral register and was chaired by Supreme Court judge, Ms Justice Mary Laff oy. Following months of deliberations and evidence, and the receipt of over 13,000 submissions from the public, the Assembly recommended constitutional change to enable the Oireachtas to legislate for access to abortion, which it considered should be available without restriction in early pregnancy and on liberal grounds thereaft er.17 Th e ad hoc Joint Oireachtas Committee, established specifi cally to consider the report, went on to endorse almost all of the Assembly ’ s recommendations (albeit recommending a slightly diff erent form of constitutional change), although it proposed more restrictive grounds for abortion in later pregnancy. 18 By early 2018, the Cabinet had announced that it would propose a referendum to replace the 8th with the 36th Amendment. Th e referendum date was set for 25 May 2018. Th e Department of Health published an outline of the proposed legislation, should the referendum be successful.19 Th is proposed legislation became a focal point of the anti-repeal campaign, even though the referendum was strictly on the proposed constitutional change alone. Th e ‘ yes ’ campaign was led by Together for Yes (TFY), a bespoke civil society group that brought together three key organisations: the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment (and all its members), the ARC, and the National Women ’ s Council of Ireland (NWCI). It had three co-directors: Ailbhe Smyth, Orla O ’ Connor and Grainne Griffi n. Deirdre Duff y managed the campaign. All had long experience of social justice leadership: Smyth had campaigned against the 8th for decades and also been a leader of the Marriage Equality campaign in 2015, O’ Connor was (and still is) director of the NWCI, and Griffi n led the ARC. Duff y had spent a number of years as head of policy with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. TFY focused on three core arguments: (i) that abortion was already happening in Ireland, but illegally and unsafely; (ii) that the 8th Amendment impacted negatively on

15 See in particular the comments and positions of (Labour) Senator Ivana Bacik, (Independent) then-Senator Katherine Zappone, and TDs Clare Daly, Ruth Coppinger and Br í d Smith. 16 A Programme for Partnership Government (May 2016), 153: https://merrionstreet.ie/MerrionStreet/en/ ImageLibrary/Programme_for_Partnership_Government.pdf. 17 First Report and Recommendations of the Citizens ’ Assembly, 29 June 2017. 18 Report of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, 20 December 2017. 19 Department of Health, General Scheme of a Bill to Regulate Termination of Pregnancy, 27 March 2018. 656 Fiona de Londras medical practice in Ireland, and (iii) that repeal was the only way to make provision for abortion in so-called ‘ hard cases ’ of rape, incest, and fatal foetal anomaly. In doing so TFY garnered the support, in particular, of medical professionals, with prominent obstetricians (especially Professors Mary Higgins, Louise Kenny and Peter Boylan), GPs (especially Dr Mary Favier and Dr Mark Murphy), and specialists in sexual violence (especially Dr Maeve Eogan) playing important roles in the public debates, and the Masters of two of the three Dublin maternity hospitals (Professors Rhona Mahony and Fergal Malone) also intervening in support of repeal. Questions of law were not prominent in the Yes campaign, although more than 1,000 lawyers signed a petition in favour of repeal.20 Th e pre-existing pro-choice lawyers ’ group, ‘ Lawyers for Choice’ , together with some individual academics (including this author and M á ir é ad Enright), led the provision of public legal education on the 36th Amendment and proposed legislation through street stalls, at town hall meetings around the country, and through online and hard copy resources.21 Although the pre-referendum polling suggested that the electorate was tightly divided, the ‘ yes ’ side consistently held the lead, and incidents such as the raising of € 1 million in a few days through a crowd-funding appeal intended to raise around € 50,000 indicated signifi cant and widespread support for the campaign. Th e interventions of Terminations for Medical Reasons – an advocacy and support group established to ensure that the experiences and voices of people who had received fatal diagnoses for their foetuses – were especially important, as were some key political interventions such as the performance of Sinn F é in leader, Mary Lou McDonald, in the fi rst television debate, the strong performance of Minister for Health, Simon Harris, on the main ‘ Prime Time’ debate, and the intervention of Fianna F á il leader, Miche á l Martin, supporting repeal. On the local and individual level, pro-choice activism was in evidence across the country. Th ere was at least one ‘ for Choice/TFY’ group in every county, and thousands of volunteers – many of whom had never been engaged in politics before – canvassed, held public meetings, had street stalls in towns and villages, wrote letters to editors, and appeared on local radio in order to discuss and advocate for a yes vote. Parents for Choice – another pre-existing group with thousands of members – mobilised volunteers in every corner of the country. Local teams were coordinated by TFY head offi ce in Dublin, which provided them with offi cial merchandise. Badges and buttons were a key mechanism of ensuring visibility: the offi cial TFY badges said ‘ yes ’ or ‘ t á ’ (the Irish for ‘ yes ’ in a referendum context), but there were also dozens of diff erent variations of badges created by local and thematic groups. From ‘ [county] together for yes ’ to ‘ culchies together for yes ’, ‘ gays together for yes ’, and even ‘ witches ’ , ‘ dogs ’ and ‘ cats ’ together for yes. Collecting and displaying badges, wearing TFY t-shirts, and placing decal stickers on cars, front doors and windows was widespread. Reports began to circulate of people walking out of Mass if priests preached against repeal. Facebook was a critical location for online canvassing, not only through campaign Facebook ads and videos, but also through grassroots activism. ‘ In Her Shoes – Women of

20 Together for Yes, Lawyers: https://www.togetherforyes.ie/lawyers/ . 21 See, especially About the 8th: www.aboutthe8th.com . Th irty-sixth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, 2018 657 the Eighth’ , a Facebook page that welcomed anonymous submissions of fi rst-person experiences of the 8th Amendment, was inundated with submissions and published at least one every day. Th ese were shared thousands of times, and the power of these anonymised narratives was such that a booklet was made, highlighting some of them, to be distributed to people who were not online. Street and door-to-door canvassers tended to reserve it for the truly undecided: it was both powerful and expensive to produce, but for many it and the In Her Shoes page were indispensible in changing hearts and minds. At the time of writing – in early July 2018 – it continues to publish the backlog of the hundreds of stories received, and still has more than 110,000 followers. Th e centrist nature of the offi cial TFY campaign – perceived to be required in order to win majority support – arguably resulted in the presentation of a ‘ tragic ’ narrative in respect of abortion that marginalised people who had had ‘ ordinary ’ abortions (including come- dian Tara Flynn and Irish Times columnist Roisí n Ingle who were among the fi rst to speak about their abortions), and presented self-medication using the abortion pill as dangerous in spite of the very low complication rate associated with these medications. Even though Savita Halappanavar was a totemic fi gure in the campaign, the voices and experiences of brown and migrant women were largely marginalised in the offi cial campaign. Similarly, trans* narratives of abortion were barely heard, notwithstanding the long-standing trans* inclusivity of the Irish reproductive rights movements. Politicians and advocates who had long presented a pro-choice agenda from a socialist perspective, such as TDs Ruth Coppinger and Clare Daly, Solidarity, People Before Profi t, and socialist feminist group ROSA, were sidelined in favour of more ‘ mainstream ’, albeit passionate, advocate voices such as Fine Gael politicians Kate O ’ Connell TD and Senator Catherine Noone. As M á ir é ad Enright put it, In Ireland in May we re-learned the painful old feminist lesson that offi cial campaigns for law reform come to stand for more hope than they can ever possibly bear; that they are shaped by patriarchy even in the very moment of its overcoming. We learned again – as smaller groups departed selectively from offi cial campaign lines, or stuck with them for one more day – that each cluster of us could make its own bargain with the status quo, or none at all. And we learned that offi cial campaigns and the compromises they solder can be temporary, while the movements and friendships that enable them need not disappear.22 In this, the successful campaign for a yes vote found itself struggling against and sometimes conceding to the well-known dangers of translating feminist demands into a movement for liberal law reform; a maneuver arguably required by the nature of constitutional change in Ireland, which can only take place through a majority vote in a referendum. However, the referendum succeeded with an overwhelming and unanticipated majority, and the exit poll shows that for most ‘ yes ’ voters a woman ’ s right to choose – rather than the ‘ hard cases ’ – was the key infl uencing factor.23

22 Máiréad Enright, ‘Th e Labour of Legal Change: On the Final Days of the Irish Pro-Choice Referendum’, Critical Legal Th inking, 20 June 2018: http://criticallegalthinking.com/2018/06/20/the-labour-of-legal-change- on-the-fi nal-days-oft he-irish-pro-choice-referendum/. 23 RTE Exit Poll, Th irty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution, 25 May 2018: https://static.rasset.ie/documents/ news/2018/05/rte-exit-poll-fi nal-11pm.pdf . 658 Fiona de Londras

III. What Happened Next

At the time of writing a number of challenges to the referendum result are on-going in the Irish courts; the referendum result cannot be certifi ed by the President until these are concluded. As a result, the 8th Amendment remains part of the Constitution but the likeli- hood of success in these challenges is negligible. It is anticipated that legislation will be passed by the end of 2018 and abortion services introduced in January 2019. Given the restrictive nature of lawful abortion aft er 12 weeks of pregnancy, abortion travel will almost certainly continue. It is also anticipated that for as long as women in Northern Ireland do not have access to lawful abortion a new abortion trail between the North and the Republic will emerge, with the Taoiseach confi rming that he anticipates abortion services in Ireland will be available to women from Northern Ireland.24

IV. Signifi cance

Th e signifi cance of the repeal referendum in May 2018 can hardly be overstated. If the 8th Amendment was a pre-emptive strike against women’ s liberation, its repeal was a deci- sive rejection of the principle that the Church, the state, and the mores of an imagined, post-colonial Ireland – with a morally particular protectionist approach to foetal life – should determine women’ s reproductive lives. As Clare Daly TD put it in the Dá il, the yes vote was a weight being lift ed, and society ‘ atoning for everything it’ s done’ to stigmatise women ’ s sexuality and reproductive agency.25 Th rough this vote, 1.4 million Irish people affi rmed the principle that it is pregnant people who should decide what happens to their bodies, and that those pregnant bodies are no longer constitutional property.