Dr Ruth Fletcher, LLB (TCD), MA (UCC), LLM (Osgoode), DJur (Osgoode)

Profile

Ruth Fletcher joined Queen Mary’s School of Law in September 2013, where she teaches and researches in medical law. Before that she was a Senior Lecturer at Keele University where she taught on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including Healthcare Law and Medical Ethics and Law. During her time at Keele, Ruth was Director of the Centre for Law, Ethics and Society, Postgraduate Director for Social Sciences, and Associate Director of the AHRC Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality.

Undergraduate Teaching

• LAW6029 Law and Medical Ethics

Research

Ruth’s research addresses the relationship between law, health and society through the lens of reproduction. She has an ongoing interest in law’s reproductivity: the generation of new legal forms through the synthesis of already existing legal forms. This has produced critical readings of new governance as it emerges through civic exchange on public health issues. It has also led to more abstract critiques of Pashukanis’ concept of legal form.  

Secondly, Ruth’s research is concerned with the practical everyday ways in which health, sexuality and reproduction become objects of legal struggle. Much of her work in this area has focused on documenting and critiquing the kinds of arguments and strategies that are generated in the regulation of abortion. Ruth’s current major project, a monograph-in-progress entitled Peripheral Life: Governing Travel for Abortion Care, investigates the significance of shifting abortion restrictions and transnational travel strategies, and draws on ESRC funded research into support networks for abortion-seeking women.  

Thirdly, Ruth is interested in reproduction as a key site of law and gender. She is Co-investigator of the AHRC ReValuing Care network an international, interdisciplinary network which aims to create spaces for dialogue about care across a range of contexts. Ruth was Associate Director of the AHRC Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality between 2004 and 2009.  

Publications

2018

• '#RepealedThe8th: Translating Travesty, Global Conversation, and the Irish Abortion Referendum.' Feminist Legal Studies 26(3): 233-259

2017

• ReValuing Care in Theory, Law and Practice: Cycles and Connections, edited with Rosie Harding and Chris Beasley, in Routledge’s Social Justice Series (2017)
• ‘ReValuing Care: Cycles and Connections’, with Rosie Harding and Chris Beasley, an introduction to ReValuing Care in Theory, Law and Practice Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, 1-13
• ‘Negotiating strangeness on the abortion trail’ in Harding, Fletcher and Beasley (eds.) ReValuing Care in Theory, Law and Practice Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, 14-31.
  • A post-print version is available on SSRN and Research Gate
• ‘Judgment: Attorney General v X and others (1992)’ in Enright, O’Donoughe and McCandless (eds.) Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments: Judges’ Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity London: Bloomsbury 2017
  • A post-print is available on SSRN: Attorney General v X and Others and on Researchgate: Attorney General v X and Others
• ‘Wench Tactics? Openings in Conditions of Closure’, with D. Ashiagbor et al Feminist Legal Studies (2017) 25(1): 1-23; available open access om Springer.

2016

• ‘Conscientious Objection, Harm Reduction and Abortion Care’, in Mary Donnelly and Claire Murray eds. Ethical and legal debates in Irish healthcare: Confronting complexities Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016, ISBN: 978-0-7190-9946-5. A Post-print version is available.
• ‘Law’s Vulnerability, and Vulnerability in Law’, with J McCandless, Y Russell and D Thomas, Feminist Legal Studies (2016) 24(3): 243-247; available open access via Springer.
• ‘On Being Uncomfortable’ with J McCandless, Y Russell and D Thomas, Feminist Legal Studies (2016) 24(2): 121-126
• ‘Internationalism and Commitment at the Kitchen Table’ with J McCandless, Y Russell and D Thomas, Feminist Legal Studies (2016) 24(1): 1-5
• ‘Deprivation of Liberty in a Health and Social Care Context’ with Wang, Ruck Keene, Penny and Ashcroft (eds.), International Journal of Mental Health and Capacity Law 24(2): 72-143.

2015

• ‘Abortion Law Reform in Ireland: A Model for Change’ and ‘General Scheme of Access to Abortion Bill’ with Enright et al Feminsts@Law 5(1)  
• ‘Civic feminism and voluntary abortion care: A story of ESCORT’s contribution to reproductive justice’, in Sinead Kennedy, Catherine Conlon and Aideen Quilty eds. The Abortion Papers Ireland: Volume 2 Cork: Cork University Press, 2015.
• ‘FLaK: Mixing Feminism, Legality and Knowledge’,Feminist Legal Studies 23(3): 241-252; open access via Springer Link
• ‘Touchstones’, Feminist Legal Studies 23(2): 121-126
• ‘Responding to Submissions’, Feminist Legal Studies 23(1): 1-6
• ‘Making Law Liveable?’ReValuing Care 28 February.

2014

• ‘Contesting the cruel treatment of abortion-seeking women’ Reproductive Health Matters 22(44): 10-21. A post-print version is available on SSRN: Contesting the cruel treatment of abortion-seeking women and on Researchgate: Contesting the cruel treatment of abortion-seeking women
• ‘Legal pathways to reproductive justice and abortion rights’ Human Rights in Ireland 13 October 2014
• ‘Peripheral thinking about abortion care’, ReValuing Care 20 August 2014
• ‘Contesting the cruel treatment of pregnant women’ Human Rights in Ireland 19 August 2014
• ‘Conscientious Objection and Harm Reduction in Europe’ in T-388/2009 Conscientious Objection and Abortion: A Global Perspective on the Colombian Experience (Women's Link Worldwide and O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, 123-146).

2013

• ‘Peripheral Governance: Administering Transnational Healthcare Flows’, International Journal of Law in Context 9(2): 160-191; 
• ‘Legal Form, Commodities and Reproduction: Reading Pashukanis’, in Maria Drakopoulou ed. Feminist Encounters with Legal Philosophy, Routledge Cavendish; pre-publication version is available. 

2012

• ‘Bringing abortion care home’, ReValuing Care 26 November
• ‘Savita Halappanavar’s death and Irish abortion law’, Abortion Review 29 November.

2010

• ‘Reproduction and Scale’, Feminist Legal Studies 18(1): 77-84.

2009

• ‘Embodied Practices: Making the Field of Law, Gender and Sexuality’, Feminist Legal Studies 17(3): 315-318
• ‘Law, Gender and Sexuality: The Making of a Field’, with Rosemary Hunter (eds.), a special section of Feminist Legal Studies 17(3): 289-332.

2008

• ‘Legal Embodiment: Analysing the Body of Healthcare Law’, with Marie Fox and Julie McCandless, Medical Law Review (2008) 16(3): 321-345
• ‘Theorising Legal Embodiment’ with Marie Fox (eds.), a special issue of Medical Law Review 16(3): 321-457
• ‘Reproductive Justice and Article 40 3 3’, in J. Schweppe ed. The Unborn Child, Article 40 3 3 and Abortion in Ireland: 25 years of Protection? (Dublin: Liffey Press) 319-348.  Translated into Spanish and published as “La justicia reproductiva y la Constitución irlandesa (art. 40.3.3)”.

2007

• Review of Tamara Hervey and Jean McHale, Health Law and the European Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), European Law Journal 13(5): 688-689.

2006

• ‘Reproductive Consumption’, Feminist Theory 7(1): 27-48.

2005

• ‘Reproducing Irishness: Race, Gender and Abortion Law’, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 17(2): 365-403
• ‘Sexual Movements and Gendered Boundaries: Legal Negotiations of the Global and the Local’, with D. Buss, D. Monk, S. Monro, O. Phillips (eds.), a special issue of Social and Legal Studies 14(1): 5-138
• ‘Introduction to Sexual Movements and Gendered Boundaries: Legal Negotiations of the Global and the Local’, with D. Buss, D. Monk, S. Monro, O. Phillips, Social and Legal Studies 14(1): 5-15
• ‘Abortion Needs or Abortion Rights? Claiming State Responsibility for Reproductive Welfare’, Feminist Legal Studies 13(1): 123-134
• Review of Janice Richardson, Selves, Persons, Individuals: Philosophical Perspectives on Women and Legal Obligations (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), Feminist Legal Studies 13(3): 377-382.

2003

• ‘Legal Forms and Reproductive Norms’, Social and Legal Studies 12(2): 217-241; reprinted in Joanne Conaghan ed. (2009) Feminist Legal Studies (vol. 3) (London: Routledge) no 42.

2002

• ‘Feminist Legal Theory’, in Reza Banakar and Max Travers (eds.) Introduction to Law and Social Theory (Oxford: Hart) 135-154.

2001

• “Post-colonial Fragments: Representations of Abortion in Irish Law and Politics”, Journal of Law and Society 28(4): 568-589.

2000

• “National Crisis, Supranational Opportunity: The Irish Construction of Abortion as a European Service”, Reproductive Health Matters 8(16): 35-44.

1998

• ‘‘Pro-Life’ Absolutes, Feminist Challenges: The Fundamentalist Narrative of Irish Abortion Law 1986-92’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal 36: 1-62.

1995

• ‘Silences: Irish Women and Abortion’, Feminist Review 50 (1): 44-66.

Supervision

Ruth welcomes the opportunity to advise research students on topics in medical law, socio-legal engagement on health issues, feminist thought and practice, and socio-legal theory. Ruth has supervised a range of PhD projects to completion in critical socio-legal studies on topics such as teenagers’ reproductive rights, the bar dancing controversy in India and feminist theory. Prospective PhD students are welcome to solicit an ‘initial opinion’ on their PhD applications. 

Public Engagement

Ruth is an Editor of Feminist Legal Studies and welcomes inquiries from prospective contributors. She has worked with civil society groups on healthcare issues, presented to a Parliamentary Health Committee and been interviewed by a range of news media. 

She is also a member of the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context (CLSGC).

Related news

• Abortion Review
  19 April 2024
• Abortion rights around the world: 'The picture is very uneven'
  3 October 2023
• On care, coercion and childbirth in the Court of Protection
  7 July 2021
• COVID-19 Lays Bare Ireland’s Selective Approach to Care
  17 June 2020
• Dr Ruth Fletcher interviewed by Politics.co.uk about abortion laws in Northern Ireland
  3 July 2018
• Dr Ruth Fletcher participates in a live discussion of the Irish abortion referendum on RTE Claire Byrne Live.
  14 May 2018
• Queen Mary University London - Universidad Torcuato Di Tella Buenos Aires 2018 Conference
  7 May 2018
• Dr Ruth Fletcher interviewed about the criminalisation of abortion pills
  13 April 2018
• Dr Ruth Fletcher interviewed about the criminalisation of abortion pills
  13 April 2018
• Ruth Fletcher co-signs letter in Irish Times clarifying legal consequences of The Eighth Amendment
  12 April 2018
• Dr Ruth Fletcher co-signs letter criticising William Binchy's comments on abortion law reform in Ireland
  22 January 2018
• Dr Ruth Fletcher provides expert testimony to the Irish Parliament’s Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment
  13 November 2017
• Dr Ruth Fletcher co-hosts the third open meeting of the London Irish Abortion Rights Campaign.
  29 June 2017
• Dr Ruth Fletcher blogs on Northern Irish Abortion Law
  29 June 2017
• Dr Ruth Fletcher comments on possible referendum on Ireland's abortion laws
  23 November 2016
• Call for Papers - Special Issue on Rethinking the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
  2 November 2015
• Dr Ruth Fletcher writes blog for The Justice Gap - 'Counting the human cost: where next for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards?'
  23 October 2015
• Experts call for urgent reform of deprivation of liberty safeguards - Dr Ruth Fletcher comments
  2 October 2015
• 10 academic lawyers, including Dr Ruth Fletcher, publish IHR-compliant abortion legislation for Ireland
  31 July 2015
• Dr Ruth Fletcher, Dr Daniel Wang and Professor Geraldine Van Bueren QC among 25 signatories to letter on Irish abortion law
  2 July 2015
• Dr Ruth Fletcher publishes two papers on Sexual and Reproductive Rights
  17 February 2015
• Dr Ruth Fletcher advises civil society groups and politicians on abortion law reform in Ireland
  13 February 2015
• Dr Ruth Fletcher 'Keeping her alive in this way strips her of all her legal rights'
  19 December 2014
• Dr Ruth Fletcher 'Contesting the cruel treatment of pregnant women'
  28 August 2014
• Dr Ruth Fletcher comments on UNHRC hearing into Ireland’s observance of human rights
  21 July 2014
• Dr Ruth Fletcher spoke at a conference on Human Rights and Abortion Law Reform
  13 December 2013