Abortion rights and reading have long been my “hobbies”. Since lockdown and not going out to talk to strangers about abortion, I’ve been reading a lot. Abortion doesn’t appear as a plot point that often, but when it does it can completely change how I feel about a novel. None of the novels below are about abortion and I’m fixating on minor plot points really, but do be aware if you don’t want spoilers then please don’t read ahead. If you can think of more please get in touch. I won’t be going outside, so I can read!
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid is one of the best depictions of abortion in fiction. I would have enjoyed more of Camilla and Karen’s friendship overall but Camilla going with Karen for her abortion and supporting her when her partner won’t shows the need for female friendships. It showed the male entitlement: he wanted a baby, why would she deny him this? And it is one of the few novels that addresses that pregnancy is not just you get a bit bigger and then there’s a baby. Karen points out that it will impact her work: how can she be in a touring band while pregnant?
Abortion is a sin and leads to punishment in Discomfort of Evening. This is a Dutch novel and I think that changes the tone than say an Irish novel coming out with the same idea. The abortion is barely noticeable in this novel of a family dealing with grief following the death of their eldest son. The incest, peadophilia and animal abuse are much more prominent. That the mother feels she is being punished is derided by the child narrator. The word abortion never used but her mother’s religious beliefs are not to be trusted.
I read Oh My God What A Complete Aisling last year because it was 99p on Kindle and I thought it was a light read. It was not. I got one of the best depictions of living under the eighth amendment and why the Repeal campaign was so important. It looked at how long the fight was going on for, how the conversations in rural areas were so important and that the access involved more than just getting on a plane to England. It covered who it impacted, why it needed to change and showed various ways to campaign. The two authors were both vocal about getting the law changed and I think continue to support ARC as the fight isn’t yet over.
Another recent Irish novel with a abortion and the lack of it: Lisa McInerney’s The Glorious Heresies. The story is one of a large cast of characters and how their lives are all entwined. Travelling to England for an abortion is just one small sub plot but was just matter of fact.
Marian Keyes has a long history of Irish women “getting the boat”. Her novels are a great way to look at how abortion was treated in Ireland. Her 2018 novel The Break had every interview for its promotion talking about the abortion because of the year of release. But Keyes wasn’t just jumping on the bandwagon trying to make the novel relevant. There are lines in earlier books about women travelling, it’s plot points and character reveals.
Maggie O’Farrell deals with abortion regret with great nuance and subtlety inInstructions for a Heatwave. It uses the same language as Expectation (“my baby would be three”) but it doesn’t just leave her crying and then moving on. We go back to her as a person who doesn’t want children. We get that the abortion changed her relationship with her husband and her sister. The regret isn’t the abortion, it’s how it changed those relationships. O’Farrell is described as British-Irish and her characters in Instructions are second generation Irish in England. I think that the Irish and Northern Irish experience of abortion meant this was more sympathetic than Expectation.
I was so disappointed in Expectation. I can’t say if it is abortion regret or if it is reflection. Sometimes that sort of ambiguity is a strength in a novel and it’s good that we don’t know, but as we know the other two main characters' feelings about having a baby it felt like it was unclear. Maybe I’m being unfair and it is good literature because women don’t always have clear feelings about their abortions but when a novel has so much about pregnancy, yearning for pregnancy, a shot gun wedding for a pregnant character; the feelings on abortion should either be clearer or written better. I thought this was an English novel for an English audience and when I look at how abortion is presented through that lens it angers me less. That it was an option to be accessed readily and easily. To not require more than a couple of sentences. To be a throwaway line.
Abortion in Irish literature has almost become a tick box for a modern novel. Sally Rooney discusses the Eighth Amendment in both Conversations with Friends and Normal People. In neither novel is it a pivotal plot point but is to give insight into the characters minds and politics. Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times is much the same: her abortion fund pays for her to move to Hong Kong. Thankfully the character did not have a crisis pregnancy as an abortion in Hong Kong costs a lot.
As I stare at my bookshelves I see many memoirs where people talk about abortion as a relief. I see American novels that talk about supporting Planned Parenthood without a crisis pregnancy in the story. I look forward to the days when abortion in Ireland is a thing for historical fiction. I can’t wait for abortion to be so normal in Northern Ireland that I don’t fixate on two lines in a novel. But until then, I will keep complaining and keep campaigning.
