Abstract

In Catholic-majority countries, same-sex marriage is often legalised prior to the legalisation of on-demand abortion services. This thesis investigates the observation that Irish reproductive rights activism brought chance-based circumstances requiring pregnancy termination to the forefront during the Repeal the 8th referendum campaign instead of using a framework that revolved around the language of choice. Due to a resemblance between some proponents of Catholic doctrine and the philosophical tradition of Luck Egalitarianism, this thesis posits that Ireland’s Catholic-majority status may have predisposed the country to favour a chance-based framing of rights issues. There is a continuity of a chance-based framing of sexual orientation – same-sex attraction is generally accepted as not an individual’s choice. However, because abortion is typically framed as a privacy matter and a personal choice, a chance-based framework had to be developed to secure the legalisation of abortion in Ireland. Because chance-based perspectives have a long association with sexual orientation, while a chance-based framework for abortion had to be developed, same-sex marriage activism had a slight advantage in Ireland, which may have contributed to the order of rights acquisition.