Written by Anna Theresa Schmid
What image comes to mind when you hear the word “abortion”? Maybe it’s a woman staring at a positive pregnancy test, devastated. Or someone walking through protestors toward a clinic, face hidden from cameras. Maybe a sterile doctor’s office – fluorescent lights, silence. All of these images have a common thread: it’s a bleak situation, where the person at the centre is utterly alone.
Moving away from individualistic understandings of abortion
Particularly in Western societies, we tend to understand abortion as a private issue and rarely think about it as a shared experience. The dominant view of healthcare, and abortion in particular, is a deeply individualised one, focused on personal responsibility and medical authority. Across other parts of the world, though, and especially in Latin America, communal practices of abortion care have a long tradition, recently also becoming more present in research. For example, feminist groups in the region have shown how abortion accompaniment enables self-managed abortion in restrictive settings, transforming abortion care to be rooted in empathy and solidarity (Belfrage, 2024; Larrea & Veldhuis, 2025).
It is from this relational perspective that I conduct my research on the island of Ireland, where abortion law and policy have changed dramatically in recent years, but where access difficulties and stigma remain. Since the Republic of Ireland’s repeal of the Eighth Amendment in 2018 and the decriminalisation of early abortion in Northern Ireland in 2019, the island has made great progress. Yet, this is uneven; geography, income, immigration status, disability, and stigma continue to shape who can access abortion care easily and who cannot, sometimes forcing people to continue a pregnancy or to rely on others to make care possible (Calkin & Berny, 2021).
Here, just like in many other contexts around the globe, individuals who accompany abortion seekers provide a vital form of support – a bridge between policy and care, or a workaround for restrictive laws. Due to the recent law changes and a wide range of actors involved in abortion support, abortion accompaniment in this context needs to be understood broadly. For example, activists and abortion doulas who used to predominantly support self-managed abortions pre-legalisation are now also involved in supporting formal care access. Similarly, friends and family have been involved in enabling self-management and in accompanying abortion travel, as well as formal care where available. Understanding accompaniment as including a range of practices and actors allows me to investigate what solidarity means in a system that works for some but still leaves many behind. The accompaniers’ work can highlight a vision of care that is relational and political, challenging the boundaries between private and public, individual and collective.
Exploring abortion accompaniment in context
In my ongoing research, I explore what accompaniment means in this broader sense. I want to shed light on how the practice reshapes care, giving voice to all who walk alongside someone during an abortion in Ireland and Northern Ireland, both before and after the law changes. Here, I go beyond the healthcare setting, broadening our understanding of what counts as ‘legitimate’ support and who is recognised as providing it.
Through analysing discussions between accompaniers in this context, I have found that accompaniment involves a complex mix of emotional, practical, and political work. It includes the relational care of those offering support, positioning abortion as shared work and accompaniment as a radically person-centred practice – one that is, however, less achievable for those who are most marginalised. To counteract this, it also includes the political labour of challenging stigma, navigating restrictive systems, and redefining abortion provision as community-based and demedicalised care that is grounded in mutual trust.
Seen through a reproductive justice lens (Ross & Solinger, 2017; Morison, 2021), what my participants term as “good” abortion accompaniment is more than a compassionate gesture. It is a practice that insists on community and autonomy, whether offered by loved ones or by activist collectives. This highlights how reproductive justice is lived in practice, as relational work that fills the spaces policy and inadequate healthcare systems leave empty. It transforms the solitary act of seeking care into a shared process shaped by trust and respect. A long call with a friend, a family member offering money, a volunteer guiding someone through the logistics – I believe each performs a vital form of justice work. These acts of accompaniment bridge the gap between the state’s promise of access and the community’s effort to make this real.
Learning from abortion accompaniment
For health psychology, I believe abortion accompaniment offers a chance to rethink the field’s traditional focus on individual coping or decision-making. Accompaniment makes visible the social and structural dimensions of health, reminding us that wellbeing is not a solitary pursuit but a collective one. Taking accompaniment seriously means recognising care not just as something done to individuals, but as something created with them. It invites psychology to walk alongside communities, paying closer attention to power, context, and justice.
So, if we return to the images we began with, this perspective shifts how we see abortion. Not a person alone, but a community walking beside them. Maybe a network of feminists ensuring care is accessible, or a couple holding hands through the pain of a medical abortion. A moment no longer defined by stigma or solitude, but by connection and empowerment.
About the Author
Anna Theresa Schmid is a PhD researcher in social policy at Ulster University in Belfast. Her research critically explores sexual and reproductive health care, with a focus on reproductive justice, health equity, and the social and psychological dimensions of care.
References:
Belfrage, M. (2024). Reclaiming Autonomy: The Changing Landscape of Mexican Abortion Activism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 49(3), 535–556. 10.1086/727986
Calkin, S., & Berny, E. (2021). Legal and non-legal barriers to abortion in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Medicine Access @ Point of Care, 5. 10.1177/23992026211040023
Larrea, S., & Veldhuis, S. (2025). Hegemonic medicine and self-managed abortion: reclaiming Latin American feminists’ contributions to knowledge and practice development. Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 33(1), 2576263. 10.1080/26410397.2025.2576263
Morison, T. (2021). Reproductive justice: a radical framework for researching sexual and reproductive issues in psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(6), e12605. 10.1111/spc3.12605
Ross, L. J., & Solinger, R. (2017). Reproductive justice: an introduction. University of California Press.