A young computer engineer is embarking on a tour of Ireland in 2018 to convince voters to support changes to the abortion law, as the country prepares for a referendum on repealing its ban on the procedure in almost all circumstances.

Caoimhe Anglin’s journey through every Irish county pitches her into the heart of a battle between secularism and traditional Catholicism.

Anglin hopes that by relaying her story of being forced to leave home to have a termination in England in 2016, she can persuade the electorate – particularly in rural Ireland – to support the abolition of the eighth amendment in the Irish constitution.

“A year ago, when I was experiencing a crisis pregnancy, I felt very alone,” Anglin said. “I wasn’t involved in any campaigns. I was the only person I knew who went through this, right up to the time I had the abortion in Manchester in 2016. I never thought I would get involved.

“I remember one key moment was on the way over to Manchester at ­Dublin airport, when I was with my boyfriend. I went to the toilet and saw a much younger girl than me, on her own and in obvious distress, whom I later saw again on the plane to Manchester. I guessed that she was doing the same as me, although she had no one with her.

“How many girls and women like her have to go through all this almost entirely on their own? It started to dawn on me that I would have to take a stand.”

The eighth amendment grants Irish citizenship to an embryo at conception, and came about after a referendum in 1983 backed by 67% of voters. Pro-choice groups in Ireland say it creates a legal “chill factor” among medical teams, even in cases where Irish law allows for a ­termination, such as when a pregnancy would result in the woman’s death.

Traditionalists accept the ­referendum is Irish Catholicism’s last stand against overhauling Ireland’s anti-abortion laws. After the church lost its fight to prevent marriage equality in 2015, the referendum has also been billed as a final chance to put the brakes on the full secularisation of Irish society.

Protesters in Dublin hold up placards at the March for Choice, a rally calling for the legalisation of abortion in Ireland. Photograph: AFP/Getty

Under existing legislation, a woman convicted of having an illegal termination in Ireland can face up to 14 years in prison. However, Irish women are free to travel abroad for abortions, and thousands do each year, mainly to England.

The national plebiscite is expected to take place in May or June, weeks before Pope Francis visits ­Ireland – the first papal trip to the ­country since John Paul II’s in 1979.

Anti-abortion campaigners say a recommendation from a parliamentary committee on 13 December that the eighth should be repealed, and that abortion should be legal for up to 12 weeks after conception, underlines the importance of preserving the amendment.

Those in favour of repealing the eighth and ­changing Ireland’s abortion laws, such as Anglin, recognise the necessity of winning hearts and minds far beyond liberal redoubts such as the Irish capital, Dublin.

Anglin, 28, said after she returned from the Manchester clinic in 2016, she was unwell and initially too frightened to tell her parents.

By accident, she did tell a friend who was involved in the repeal campaign about what happened. In December 2016, the friend put Anglin in touch with the abortion reform movement.

“I felt a huge weight had been lifted off my mind and I started telling more people about having an abortion,” Anglin said. “I increasingly found that the response was ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you had to go through that’ or ‘Oh my God, me too’ or ‘My sister went through that, or my aunt, or my best friend etc.’

“I was now in this group of thousands upon thousands of women who had this common theme running through all their lives. So, early in 2017, my friend from the campaign suggested we do a project based on the personal stories of women like me, because they add humanity to the issue and they make it more real.”

Anglin said she was prepared for a “vicious public debate” in the run-up to the referendum, but hoped the Everyday Stories project, for which she is now a key speaker, would help shift opinion towards a yes vote.

“Given that I have that background in rural middle Ireland, I understand how important it is to go out there into every county, into as many rural towns and even villages to tell my story. I think it’s important that people like myself don’t talk down to the voters who come to listen to what I have to say.”

A billboard erected by Both Lives Matter. Photograph: Both Lives Matter/PA

The Iona Institute, a Christian lobby group, has acknowledged that the eighth amendment campaign is going to be a decisive struggle to preserve what for them are key religious values in an increasingly secular republic.

Dave Quinn, journalist, commen­tator and director of the institute, said the referendum is “of the most crucial importance” to traditional Catholics and other conservative Christians.

Quinn argued that if the Irish electorate votes to ­abolish the eighth amendment, “we will have explicitly declared that the unborn have no right to life under our constitution. The legislature, or the courts, would quickly move towards a very permissive ­abortion regime.”

Most polls in recent years suggest there is broad support for changing the eighth amendment in some way, but a reluctance among voters to fully liberalise abortion laws along the lines of most other European countries.