Assessing the influence and legitimacy of citizen deliberation on abortion: A rejoinder to Eoin Carolan and Seána Glennon

Abstract

Abstract This article responds to the two key arguments presented by Eoin Carolan and Seána Glennon in their reply to our article: that the Citizens’ Assembly on abortion had a “consensus-clarifying” function rather than a “consensus-building” function in respect of the Irish constitutional amendment on abortion in 2018; and that participation in deliberative mini-publics should be compulsory, like jury service. We argue that the distinction drawn by Carolan and Glennon does not assist in understanding constitutional amendment processes, as the consensus required for a constitutional amendment must be fully formed, in respect of a specific amendment. We contend that the Irish Citizens’ Assembly assisted the formulation of that consensus in respect of abortion reform in Ireland. We argue that compulsory participation risks distorting the discursive environment that is essential to an effective and legitimate deliberative mini-public, and could fail to ensure the desired representativeness if exceptions to participation were allowed in certain circumstances.