Abortion & Reproductive Rights Under Nationalist Regimes in Twentieth Century Europe

Feminists and women’s groups around the world have been struggling to achieve some hard fought battles for equality and recognition for a very long time. Each success and each step forward has given many a reason to celebrate. But each success cannot be assumed to be complete, and “progress” is not inevitable. At specific points in time and geographic regions, strides forward in the battle towards equality have been followed by steps back -a re-patriarchalization of sorts. In polities across Europe, women won reproductive rights and choices and access to public life under some regimes, only to lose them with a change of government under specific political, economic and social circumstances. This paper assesses the impact of the rise to power of nationalist regimes, particularly during periods of ethnic conflict and unrest, on the reproductive rights of the women who lived through the periods. Four specific cases are presented: Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia (later Croatia) and Revolutionary (and post-Soviet) Russia. These four cases exemplify the transitions from non-nationalist governments to nationalist and back. At each point, population policies are altered and redrafted to reflect the political interests of those in power. This paper shows that one step forward for women can and is followed by two steps back when the nation’s “health” is put ahead of women’s health by nationalist regimes.