This is the first book-length study to investigate the place of lay Catholic women in modern Irish history. It analyses the intersections of gender, class and religion by exploring the roles that middle-class, working-class and rural poor women played in the evolution of Irish Catholicism and thus the creation of modern Irish identities. The book demonstrates that in an age of Church growth and renewal, stretching from the aftermath of the Great Famine through the Free State years, lay wom...

For more than a generation, activists and advocacy organizations have been instrumental in agitating for women's health reforms in Ireland. Over the last decade, Irish activists have experienced a number of victories to improve women's health, most notably in 2018 when Ireland passed a referendum to repeal the Eighth amendment, a constitutional ban on abortion. After years of unfavorable laws for women and successive scandals in women's health, Ireland has taken transformative steps to red...

Birth control offers women the opportunity to prevent pregnancy, plan and space their births, or have no births at all. And yet, in the United States, half of all pregnancies remain unintended, and access to birth control is beset by inequities in education, access, and coverage. Research indicates that women are familiar with the range of contraceptive methods available today. But the persistently high rates of unintended pregnancy, combined with common dissatisfaction and discontinuation...

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping federal protection for abortion rights and placing control in the hands of individual states. This monumental shift in policy underscores the need for deeper historical perspectives on reproductive rights.The Nursing Clio Reader answers that call, bringing together essays that examine reproductive health through historical research...

This edited volume explores the intersection of spirituality with childbirth from 1800 to the present day from a comparative perspective. It illustrates how over this time period in much of the world, traditional practices, home births, and midwives have been overshadowed and undermined by male dominated obstetrics, hospitalization, and ultimately the medicalization of the birthing process itself.

Birth control offers women the opportunity to prevent pregnancy, plan and space their births, or have no births at all. And yet, in the United States, half of all pregnancies remain unintended, and access to birth control is beset by inequities in education, access, and coverage.Birth Control: What Everyone Needs to Know will offer more than a user's guide to available means of contraception: it will examine how supported family-planning infrastructure impacts society as a...