Ireland’s contribution to the European Film Festival reminds us of women’s continued battle for reproductive rightsThe documentary’s title refers to the eighth amendment to the Irish constitution, introduced in 1983 and “giving the unborn an equal right to life to that of its mother”. The consequences for women’s health care in Ireland were dire, and the law came to represent an understanding of Irish society in which women were still not fully free.
In a referendum in 2018, Irish voters chose overwhelmingly to repeal the amendment. At the start of the campaign, however, this outcome was by no means a foregone conclusion. The 8th tells the story of the women behind the coalition that made a prochoice case to the Irish people. In particular, it tracks the experiences of 70-year-old activist and academic Ailbhe Smyth, whose decades of opposition to the eighth culminated in triumph — and whose words at the close of the film remind us that equa.