On Monday night, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed that Ireland will hold a referendum on abortion in late May. The electorate will be asked if they want to repeal or retain the eighth amendment to the constitution, which effectively bans terminations. In the case of repeal, people will also be asked to approve an addition to the constitution allowing the Oireachtas, the Irish legislature, to legislate for abortion. The government will draft legislation for unrestricted access to terminations up to 12 weeks, but this will only be voted on if the referendum passes.

Varadkar is acting on the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly, set up by his predecessor Enda Kenny, which considered balanced evidence on abortion, and voted overwhelmingly for liberalisation. He is also acting on the advice of an all-party Oireachtas committee, which reviewed the assembly’s findings. The additional constitutional clause is the recommendation of the attorney general. In significant respects, his announcements are no surprise.

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Yet the press conference still took me aback. I wasn’t prepared for the unabashed feminism of Varadkar’s rhetoric. “We’re asking people to trust women,” he said. He talked of the thousands who travel abroad for abortions each year, the 2,000 annually who put themselves at risk by taking abortion pills without medical support. He defined the decision before the Irish people as one between stigmatising and criminalising our sisters and friends or exercising empathy and compassion. He talked about his journey from a staunch anti-abortion position, but asked us to remember that the hardest journeys are those made by Irish women who must travel to end their pregnancies. These journeys, he told us, don’t have to happen.

This is an extraordinary departure from Varadkar’s previous stated positions. Long on public record as anti-abortion, as recently as November 2015 he called for a provision on the right to life of the unborn to remain in the constitution, and said that he did not want “abortion on demand” introduced in Ireland. He says his position evolved in concert with his life experiences. He listened to the views of others. He listened to medical experts, the public, his party colleagues. Above all, he says, he listened to women.

On 18 January, I was left similarly disoriented by the leader of the opposition, Micheál Martin, who gave a pro-choice speech in Dáil Eireann, Ireland’s lower house of parliament. He referenced the harms caused to women by the eighth amendment, its effect on the quality of care pregnant women receive, the fact that abortion is already a permanent part of Irish life, and the victimisation of women who’ve been raped or whose pregnancies can’t survive. He declared his intention to vote for repeal.

During the 2016 election, Martin consistently answered questions about abortion by asserting that he was anti-abortion and not in favour of a referendum. In May 2017, when asked by a radio host if, hypothetically, a woman who had been raped by her father should have the right to an abortion, Martin answered that it was not that simple, and recounted the tale of a person he knew who was conceived due to rape.

He attributes his new position to a long period of reflection and assessment of evidence. He studied the facts. He thought about women in crisis. He changed his mind.

It’s the strangest feeling, listening to these men who I have long considered my political enemies in the struggle to repeal the eighth amendment suddenly declare themselves allies. Welcome to the repeal movement, lads! We’re only delighted to have ye.

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And, yes I know that it’s us – the campaigners, the feminists – who put this on the agenda: it’s everyone who rallied for choice, who publicly shared their abortion stories, who set up stalls and took flack in the streets, who sprayed slogans on walls, who made art, who organised conferences, who published evidence-based legal and medical reports, who wore repeal T-shirts, who risked 14 years in jail for illegally distributing the abortion pill, who stood up in the Dáil to champion women’s rights long before Varadkar or Martin, who raised funds, who strategised, who myth-busted, who refused to shut up, who lost their cool, lost friends, ruined Sunday dinner, found their chill again, and had impossibly hard conversations with loved ones. You did this. We did this.

But they listened.

I can be cynical and declare that the boys are just playing politics. But I would rather believe that when presented with sound evidence and women’s testimony, our political leaders evolved. Because if we can convince Varadkar and Martin, then we can convince our families and friends.

In a recent interview, the Australian comic Tim Minchin argued for giving leaders the space to change their policies and their minds, saying: “How is the term flip-flop a bad thing?”

I’d like to do some flip-flopping of my own. When Varadkar won leadership of Fine Gael, and was set to become taoiseach, I wrote that it was a “disaster for Ireland’s campaign for reproductive rights”, that he was absolutely the wrong person to preside over the abortion referendum.

I’ve never been happier to eat crow.

• Emer O’Toole is assistant professor of Irish performance studies at Concordia University, in Canada, and author of Girls Will Be Girls