Both colour photography and the laws against abortion in Ireland were first introduced by the British in 1861, in an era of women’s suffrage. Butterfly collections embody the English Victorian patriarchal and colonial attitudes that attempted to categorise and control nature and codify behaviours, in a taxonomy of surveillance and gender. An Appropriate Hobby encompasses the legacy of suffragette struggle with contemporary feminism, it links up the new picture technologies utilised for popular apps such as Instagram with Victorian categorisation and references the first ever colour photograph. It also overlays the issue of bodily autonomy, central to contemporary feminism, onto ideas within dominant patriarchal discourse about appropriate gendered sexual behaviour. Importantly, it also allows the abortion rights movement to take back the visual terrain without demurring.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation has noted the lack of appropriate imagery and the stigmatising effect of this lack, where disembodied foetal imagery or very pregnant women are used to illustrate abortion discussions. This project has provided engaging imagery of women willing to be seen as supporters of abortion rights and has already been seen on city walls, the cover of books about abortion and used by academics to illustrate research on abortion pills.

The images are all of women and potentially pregnant people who have been part of the movement towards reproductive justice. They include personal vernacular images of their activism such as rallies or badges or where they have felt part of a movement. Every participant is cognisant of their potential as an abortion seeker, many will have had abortions themselves, or helped others who have; therefore, each is a knowing and willing representative human face to counter the stigmatising discourse around bodily autonomy in pregnancy. Together, we no longer cede the visual terrain to the anti-choice movement.