A Fragmented Landscape: Abortion Governance and Protest Logics in Europe

Published by Berghahn Books 2016

A Fragmented Landscape

Abortion Governance and Protest Logics in Europe

Edited by: Silvia De Zordo , Joanna Mishtal and Lorena Anton

Volume 20 in the series Protest, Culture & Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781785334283

Overview
Contents

About this book

Since World War II, abortion policies have remained remarkably varied across European nations, with struggles over abortion rights at the forefront of national politics. This volume analyses European abortion governance and explores how social movements, political groups, and individuals use protests and resistance to influence abortion policy. Drawing on case studies from Italy, Spain, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the European Union, it analyses the strategies and discourses of groups seeking to liberalise or restrict reproductive rights. It also illuminates the ways that reproductive rights politics intersect with demographic anxieties, as well as the rising nationalisms and xenophobia related to austerity policies, mass migration and the recent terrorist attacks in Europe.

Author / Editor information

Silvia De Zordo is a Senior Researcher at the University of Barcelona (UB), Department of Anthropology. Her research interests encompass contraception, abortion and conscientious objection in Latin America and Europe. She has recently been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to study the impact on women of barriers to legal abortion in Europe. Her recent publications include Reproduction and Biopolitics: Ethnographies of Governance, "Irrationality" and Resistance (ed. with Milena Marchesi), published by Routledge in 2014.

Joanna Mishtal is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida. Her research examines reproductive rights, health, and policies in Poland, and in the context of EU governance. Her ethnography The Politics of Morality: The Church, the State and Reproductive Rights in Postsocialist Poland (2015) received the Adele E. Clarke Book Award in 2017.

Lorena Anton is a Marie Curie Fellow in social anthropology at the University of Bucharest (2013-2017), where she develops a project on abortion governance in post-communist Romania. Recent publications include ‘On n'en parlera jamais de tout ça! Ethnographier la mémoire de l’avortement en Roumanie de Ceaușescu’, in Ethnologie Française (2014) and the ‘Cultural Memory’ entry in Protest Cultures: A Companion (eds. Fahlenbrach et al., Berghahn Books).

Silvia De Zordo is a Senior Researcher at the University of Barcelona (UB), Department of Anthropology. Her research interests encompass contraception, abortion and conscientious objection in Latin America and Europe. She has recently been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to study the impact on women of barriers to legal abortion in Europe. Her recent publications include Reproduction and Biopolitics: Ethnographies of Governance, "Irrationality" and Resistance (ed. with Milena Marchesi), published by Routledge in 2014.

Reviews

“This edited volume does not only offer gender historians a rich source, but should also be of interest to historians of social movements and legal historians who have to face the fact that an expected process like ‘liberalization’ is created by economic and material factors as well as subterranean techniques of subjectivization and does not reveal any direction but presents a constellation that can switch position any time.” · H-Soz-Kult

“This is an extremely important contribution to the literature on the policies and politics surrounding reproductive rights. It covers a range of historical developments and national contexts while developing multiple overarching themes in an accessible manner.” · Jennifer Merchant, Université Paris II

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Silvia De Zordo, Joanna Mishtal and Lorena Anton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Pro-abortion Rights Activism, Movements, Strategies, and Protest Logics
Chapter 1 Legal and Political Discourses on Women’s Right to Abortion Christina Zampas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Chapter 2 Freeing Abortion in Sweden Annulla Linders and Danielle Bessett Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
Chapter 3 Women’s Liberation and the ‘Right to Choose’ Struggling for Abortion in the United Kingdom and Switzerland Kristina Schulz and Leena Schmitter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
Part II Anti-abortion Rights Activism, Movements, Strategies, and Protest Logics
Chapter 4 Contesting Abortion Rights in Contemporary Italy: Discourses and Practices of Pro-life Activism Claudia Mattalucci Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
Chapter 5 Innocence and Demographic Crisis: Transposing Post-abortion Syndrome into a Russian Orthodox Key Sonja Luehrmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Chapter 6 Still a Woman’s Right? Feminist and Other Discourses in Belgium’s Abortion Struggles Karen Celis and Gily Coene Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
Part III Health Professionals’/Providers’ Involvement in the Pro- or Anti-abortion Rights Debate and Access to Services
Chapter 7 ‘Good Doctors Do Not Object’ Obstetricians-Gynaecologists’ Perspectives on Conscientious Objection to Abortion Care and their Engagement with Pro-abortion Rights Protests in Italy Silvia De Zordo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
Chapter 8 Women Rights or ‘Unborn’ Rights? Laws and Loopholes in Madrid’s Public Healthcare Services’ Abortion Provision to Migrant Women Beatriz Aragón Martín Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Chapter 9 One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: Accessing Abortion in Norway Mette Løkeland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Part IV Pronatalism, Nationalism, and Resistance in Abortion Politics and Access to Abortion Services
Chapter 10 For the Good of the Nation: Pronatalism and Abortion Ban during Ceauşescu’s Romania Lorena Anton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Chapter 11 Quietly ‘Beating the System’ The Logics of Protest and Resistance under the Polish Abortion Ban Joanna Mishtal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
Chapter 12 Abortion Governance in the New Northern Ireland Robin Whitaker and Goretti Horgan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Afterword. Reproductive Governance meets European Abortion Politics: The Challenge of Getting the Gaze Right Lynn M. Morgan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	266
Acknowledgements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	285

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 304
Keywords: Abortion Laws; Activism; Abortion; Reproductive Rights; Women's Rights; Healthcare; Anti-Abortion Activism

eBook

Published: December 1, 2016
ISBN: 9781785334283