Reproducing Timely Subjects: How Abortion Law Calendars Social Reproduction

• Published in: Social & legal studies Vol. 34; no. 4; pp. 469 - 495
• Main Author: Fletcher, Ruth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.08.2025; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Abortion; Administrative procedure; Calendars; Capitalism; Capitalist societies; Feminism; Feminist theory; Law; Life cycles; Poverty; Social reproduction; Time; feminism; Time and temporality; gestational labour; abortion law; Ireland; social reproduction
• ISSN: 0964-6639; 1461-7390
• DOI: 10.1177/09646639241266231

Drawing on feminist social reproduction theory and its concern for time spent reproducing the workers of tomorrow, this paper turns to Ireland's new periodic abortion law as a key source of knowledge for social reproduction. I show how law takes different qualitative approaches to measuring reproductive time as it uses a 12 week time limit to distinguish between better and worse reproductive subjects in a context of time poverty. I develop an account of calendaring, with its timelines, punctuations and paces, as a key concept of social reproduction that explains these different legal approaches. Calendars plot reproductive timelines with abstract and concrete moments; they punctuate timelines with different expectations of timeliness, and pace progress with administrative procedures like deadlines and waiting periods. In the process, some become entitled to abortion as timely subjects, others have to make a special case for their exceptional timeliness, and the possibility of being timed out of access threatens all with uneven effects. Periodic abortion law plays a key role in reproducing timely subjects and generating techniques for managing reproductive life cycles in capitalist societies.