Autonomy: Taking Ourselves Back

Calling all Beijing feminists for a night of discussion, performance, and wine! The Bookworm will be hosting ‘Autonomy: Taking Our Bodies Back’, a project launched in Ireland to campaign towards a change in the country’s strict abortion laws. This event is a safe space to explore the true nature of bodily autonomy, and the consequences of women’s private choices becoming public debate.

Kathy D’Arcy’s Autonomy is an equally fine and surprising collection of voices: academics, journalists, playwrights, poets, fiction writers, as well as representatives of the LGBT+, Traveller and migrant communities. Spurred on by the memory of her grandmother Alice who was the mother of 16, D’Arcy states “The issue of reproductive rights is so personal for me. If the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution is repealed, I will be the first woman ever in my family to really be able to make the decision not to be pregnant.”

Autonomy is a women-led collection of stories, poems, memoirs, essays, articles, screenplays and more exploring what it means to have bodily autonomy. Read it if you don’t understand why no-one should ever be forced to stay pregnant against their will. Read it if you do understand, and would like to be part of the change.

Links and press on Autonomy:

http://newbinarypress.com/product/autonomy/

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/autonomy-edited-by-kathy-d-arcy-repeal-the-8th-edited-by-una-mullally-review-1.3444320

https://thecontemporarysmallpress.com/2018/03/23/autonomous-voices/