| "Never Tear the Linnet from the Leaf": The Feminist Intertextuality of Edna O'Brien's "Down by the River". | |
| | |
MedLine Citation:
|
PMID: 21132931 Owner: HMD Status: In-Process |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
|
[[In lieu of an abstract, here is a preview of the article.In 1983 an amendment was added to the Irish Constitution proclaiming that "the State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right." In 1992 a fourteen-year-old Irish girl who had traveled with her family to England to obtain an abortion was forced to return to the Republic of Ireland without having completed the procedure. The girl, who had been raped by an adult friend of her family, was determined to be suicidal, and it was this determination that allowed the Irish Supreme Court to lift the injunction against her leaving the country while upholding the 1983 constitutional amendment. The case of a suicidal pregnant girl—whose despondency threatened equally her own life and that of her fetus—continues to provide an anomalous legal rationale for abortion in the Republic of Ireland, a state in which abortion is otherwise banned. This remains so despite the best efforts of the Irish government, in a number of referenda, to close this loophole. The legal consequences of the 1992 X case continue to determine the parameters of Irish law—and of Irish women's sexuality, reproductive rights, and citizenship. 1Because the adjudication of the X case continues to affect Irish law, the case continued to be debated in the Irish media long after its resolution. For example, in 2000 a former Irish High Court justice, Roderick J. O'Hanlon, wrote a letter to the Irish Times arguing that in fact Miss X had not been suicidal, that her suicidality had been concocted as a legal strategy to circumvent the 1983 amendment. O'Hanlon begins his letter by writing, "The 'X' case will not go away. In the words of Shakespeare, it 'will rise, though all the world o'erwhelm it, to men's eyes.'" 2 O'Hanlon uses—and misquotes ]] |
| | |
Authors:
|
Jane Elizabeth Dougherty |
Publication Detail:
|
Type: Journal Article |
Journal Detail:
|
Title: Frontiers Volume: 31 ISSN: 0160-9009 ISO Abbreviation: Frontiers (Boulder) Publication Date: 2010 |
Date Detail:
|
Created Date: 2010-12-06 Completed Date: - Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
|
Nlm Unique ID: 100967604 Medline TA: Frontiers (Boulder) Country: United States |
Other Details:
|
Languages: eng Pagination: 77-102 Citation Subset: Q |
Export Citation:
|
APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
|
|
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Previous Document: Milking the Plains: movement of large dairy operations into southwestern Kansas.
Next Document: Re-Placing the Madwoman: Irene Vilar's "The Ladies' Gallery".