Crossing U.S. Borders While Pregnant: An Increasingly Complex Reality

In response to the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland, which states that the fetus and the mother have equal rights to life and that nearly all abortions are therefore illegal, many Irish feminists sported luggage tags that read "HEALTHCARE NOT AIRFARE." The expression-which recently became a popular twitter hashtag for pro-choice citizens of Ireland leading up to the historic referendum to repeal that abortion ban-refers to the fact that pregnant women from Ireland have long been forced to travel to other European countries in order to legally terminate their pregnancies. In the United States, there is also a deep and challenging relationship between borders and reproductive health. However, that relationship is not understood as clearly as it appears to be in the Irish context. We urgently need to pay careful attention to the interconnections between U.S. border politics and reproductive health care access and to take concrete steps to address resultant injustices.