Now available from University of California Press. Click here to buy. 

Abortion Pills Go Global is an unprecedented, up-close look into the global self-managed abortion movement. It draws on interviews with dozens of leading abortion activists from across the world, concentrating on the transnational movement for self-managed abortion as it operates in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland, and the USA. 

Taking a bold and unique geographic approach, this book follows these pills as they are manufactured and transported by feminist activists from India to Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland, and the United States. Calkin shows that the growing availability of abortion pills in places with restrictive laws means more people have access to self-managed healthcare. Abortion Pills Go Global looks ahead to see how the broader politics of abortion could shift in response to this global movement—one that looks not to laws for protection but to on-the-ground feminist mobilizations across borders.

Publisher's Weekly calls Abortion Pills Go Global an "eye-opening" read that provides "an incisive look at the deeply intertwined relationship between international supply chains, local politics, underground activism, and women’s rights." Full review available here.

Praise for Abortion Pills Go Global

"Abortion Pills Go Global is an enlightening examination of how medication abortion has become the go-to option around the world. As Calkin shows so well, abortion pills have become a key facet of reproductive justice."—Rickie Solinger, coauthor​ ​of Reproductive Justice: An Introduction

"Sydney Calkin takes the question of women’s access to abortion as a jumping-off point for a searing account of the mutual entanglement of the moral and political economies of abortion pills. She offers a compelling and fresh take on a debate that has long been dominated by questions of the precise legal status of abortion. By following the practical strategies of access-to-abortion activists, Calkin retrains our sights: away from a tight focus on abstract legal regimes and onto people doing things. Phone calls and post offices pepper her tale of emancipatory tactics of our current moment’s most important feminist fight-back."—Sarah Hodges, Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London

Is this book relevant to your teaching? 

If you're an educator who would like to use this book in your teaching, please get in touch. I can provide teaching resources (discussion questions, group activities, prompts) for undergraduate and postgraduate students to easily integrate the book into your syllabus. Equally, I would be delighted to drop into your classroom on Zoom for a discussion with students. Please contact me to discuss further. 

After Repeal is an edited collection that explores Ireland’s 201 abortion referendum, which overturned its constitutional abortion ban, and imagines what comes next. It collects fifteen chapters by twenty-two authors with a wide range of academic expertise and activist experience. It is written to be accessible to students, researchers, and anyone with an interest in reproductive rights and justice. It features chapters written by activists who campaigned with Together For Yes, Dublin Bay North for Repeal, Lawyers for Choice, and Gaeil ar son Rogha (the Irish language campaign to repeal), among others.

A recent review of the book in Irish Studies Review called it “a nuanced and comprehensive book which thoroughly examines both micro- and macro-narratives relating to the Eighth Amendment and larger abortion debates in Ireland and abroad” (Irish Studies Review).

After Repeal has recently been reviewed in the following places: Irish Studies Review, Gender & Development, Gender Place & Culture, and Community Development Journal. It was also reviewed in the journal of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers, which lists the book as a key resource for continuing professional development.

You can order the book here. All author proceeds from the book go to support Abortion Support Network, who continue to help people excluded by the new Irish abortion law to travel for safe, legal abortion.

Praise for After Repeal

“In an impressive collection of cross-disciplinary essays, After Repeal tackles the fraught history of abortion in Ireland and offers valuable, engrossing and often challenging analyses of the battle for the right to choose leading to the landslide victory for repeal of the 8th Amendment in 2018″ Ailbhe Smyth, Together for Yes

“After Repeal is bound to become a necessary read for anyone, scholarly or otherwise, wishing to understand the broad historical, political and social contexts for abortion in the Island of Ireland” Emma Campbell, Alliance for Choice

“This book is that rare combination of being scholarly yet welcoming of the person who wants to hear true stories, well-told” Katherine O’Donnell, University College Dublin

“Overall, this is a timely and well-conceived contribution, and will serve as a great resource for anyone with a vested or general interest in women’s rights, abortion discourses, and/or Irish politics” Irish Studies Review