The Nation at Stake? Ideologizing Conceptions of Family Planning in East Central Europe Since 1939

ABSTRACT

This introduction outlines the conceptional framework of the special issue and the current state of research as well as the main juridical, political and social milestones within the discussed timeframe. It offers a historicized view on conceptions of the family and their interdependencies, particularly perceptions of the woman’s role in the respective societies and states for the assessment of family values. In doing so, it places a lens on abortion, which is deemed a practice of the individual’s right of choice and hence a specific outcome of family planning. The article traces social and societal conflicts resulting from the abortion question in East Central Europe. It argues that multi-ethnicity has been a particular trigger which influenced the understanding of the family as the core of the nation and of women as its guardians, so that the various conflict constellations have been reflected in attitudes towards women and families.

KEYWORDS:

• Family planning
• abortion
• families
• socialism
• World war II

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ The research for this article was conducted within the project ‘“Family Planning” in East Central Europe from the 19th Century Until the Approval of the “Pill”’, funded by the Ministry of Education and Research, Bmbf, Fkz 01uc1902.

² Dyer Owen, ‘Protests Flare Up Across Poland As Another Pregnant Woman’s Death Is Blamed on Abortion Law’, The British Medical Journal, 381, (2023),

³ ‘Death of 30-Year-Old Pregnant Izabela in a Hospital in Pszczyna. Mother of the Deceased: I Will Never Come to Terms with It’, Polish News, (November 4, 2021), https://polishnews.co.uk/death-of-30-year-old-pregnant-izabela-in-a-hospital-in-pszczyna-mother-of-the-deceased-i-will-never-come-to-terms-with-it/ (accessed October 01, 2022). All cases anonymize the affected women by referring only to their first name.

⁴ Jagoda Różycka, ‘Śmierć Doroty w Nowym Targu. Bliscy domagają się prawdy. Konkretne osoby, z imienia i nazwiska’, Gazeta, (June 12, 2023), https://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/7,114883,29860701,smierc-ciezarnej-doroty-bliscy-zmarlej-kobiety-chcemy-uslyszec.html (accessed: July 28, 2023).

⁵ Weronika Strzyżyńska, ‘Polish State Has “Blood on Its Hands” After Death of Woman Refused an Abortion’, Guardian, (January 26, 2022), https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/26/poland-death-of-woman-refused-abortion (accessed: March 15, 2022).

⁶ A recent sociological approach is, e.g. Blahoslav Kraus et al. (eds.), Contemporary Family Lifestyles in Central and Western Europe: Selected Cases, (Cham, 2020).

⁷ Heidi Hein-Kircher, ‘Ein Brennglas für Werte- und Normenwandel: Das Verständnis von “Familienplanung” von der Jahrhundertwende bis 1939 – Polen als Beispiel’, Nordostarchiv, 29, (2020 [2023]), 60–74.

8 Eszter Kováts and Maari Põim (eds.), Gender as a Symbolic Glue: The Position and Role of Conservative and Far Right Parties in the Anti-Gender Mobilizations in Europe, (Brussels, 2015), https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/budapest/11382.pdf (accessed: November 20, 2021).

⁹ Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Kacper Pempel, ‘Death of Pregnant Woman Ignites Debate About Abortion Ban in Poland’, Reuters, (November 6, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/death-pregnant-woman-ignites-debate-about-abortion-ban-poland-2021-11-05/ (accessed: 12.10.2021).

¹⁰ Rozporządzenie ministra zdrowia z dnia 26 czerwca 2020 r. w sprawie szczegółowego zakresu danych zdarzenia medycznego przetwarzanego w systemie informacji oraz sposobu i terminów przekazywania tych danych do Systemu Informacji Medycznej. Version of April 19, 2023 (§2 m; Dz.U. 2023.738 t.j.), https://sip.lex.pl/akty-prawne/dzu-dziennik-ustaw/szczegolowy-zakres-danych-zdarzenia-medycznego-przetwarzanego-w-19010485/par-1 (accessed: July 23, 2023).

¹¹ Wojciech Kość, ‘Outrage over Polish Government Plan to Register Each Pregnancy’, Politico, (November 24, 2021), https://www.politico.eu/article/outrage-over-polish-government-plan-to-register-each-pregnancy/ (accessed: December 10, 2021).

¹² Dorota died because physicians refused to induce an abortion although it would have been the only way to save her life. Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Pempel, ‘Death of Pregnant Woman Ignites Debate’.

¹³ Marta Bucholc, ‘Abortion Law and Human Rights in Poland: The Closing of the Jurisprudential Horizon’, Hague Journal of the Rule Law, 14, (2022), 73–99, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40803-022-00167-9.

¹⁴ Abortion in Europe. Status Report, (May 2018), https://humanistfederation.eu/wp-content/uploads/Abortion-Status-Report.pdf (accessed: Devcember 20, 2021)

¹⁵ See Matthijs Bogaards and Andrea Pető, ‘Gendering De-Democratization: Gender and Illiberalism in Post-Communist Europe’, Politics and Governance, 10, no. 4, (2022), 1–5, https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i4.6245; Christian Lamour, ‘Orbán Urbi et Orbi: Christianity as a Nodal Point of Radical-Right Populism’, Politics and Religion, 15, no. 2, (2022), 317–343, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048321000134; Bianka Vida, ‘New Waves of Anti-Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Strategies in the European Union: The Anti-Gender Discourse in Hungary’, Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 27, no. 2, (2019), 13–16, https://doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2019.1610281.

¹⁶ Abortion in Europe. Status Report.

¹⁷ Orsolya Bajnay, ‘Financial Incentives Meet Moral Imperatives in Viktor Orbán’s “Social Contract” with Hungarian Women’, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, (December 2022), https://cz.boell.org/en/2022/12/09/Orban-Viktors-social-contract-women#_ftnref8 (accessed: 07.28.2023).

¹⁸ Global Views on Abortion, (August 2022), https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2022–07/Global%20Advisor-Global%20Opinion%20on%20Abortion%202022-Graphic%20Report.pdf (accessed: July 28, 2023).

¹⁹ Denisa Nešťáková and Zuzana Maďarová, ‘Political Struggles over Women’s Bodies: Links Between the Present and the Past’, Leibniz Magazin, (October 2020), https://www.leibniz-magazin.de/alle-artikel/magazindetail/newsdetails/political-struggles-over-womens-bodies/ (accessed: July 17, 2023).

²⁰ See Denisa Nešťáková, ‘Family Conceptions at the Intersection of Feminism, Public Health, and Nationalism in Czechoslovakia (1918–1939)’, Journal of Family History, 48, no. 3, (2023), 309–322, https://doi.org/10.1177/03631990231160095.

²¹ See Denisa Nešťáková, ‘Be Fruitful and Multiply’: Slovakia’s Family Planning Under Three Regimes (1918–1965), (Marburg, 2023) (forthcoming).

²² Oľga Pietruchová, Access to Abortion Services for Women in the EU. Slovakia, (October 2020), https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2022–07/Global%20Advisor-Global%20Opinion%20on%20Abortion%202022-Graphic%20Report.pdf (accessed July 23, 2023).

²³ Denisa Nešťáková, ‘Four Disturbing Aspects to Slovakia Limiting Abortion Access for Ukrainian Women’, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (2022), https://eu.boell.org/en/2022/04/22/four-disturbing-aspects-slovakia-limiting-abortion-access-ukrainian-women (accessed: July 23, 2023).

²⁴ This initiative is part of an international network of similar organizations founded by activists, like the Ciocia Basia (Auntie Basia) one in Berlin, https://ciociaczesia.pl/; https://womenhelp.org/en/page/405/germany-ciocia-basia (both accessed: October 23, 2021).

²⁵ Anja Vladisavljevic, ‘Auntie Czech to Help Polish Women Deprived of Abortion Rights’, Balkan Insight, (November 9, 2020), https://balkaninsight.com/2020/11/09/auntie-czech-to-help-polish-women-deprived-of-abortion-rights/ (accessed October 17, 2021).

²⁶ ‘Senát schválil odškodnění pro nezákonně sterilizované ženy. Byly jich tisíce’, Amnesty International, (July 23, 2021), https://www.amnesty.cz/zprava/5183/undefined (accessed July 17, 2023).

²⁷ David Hutt, ‘The Shameful Story of Roma Women’s Forced Sterilisation in Central Europe’, Euronews, (August 2, 2021), https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/02/the-shameful-story-of-roma-women-s-forced-sterilisation-in-central-europe and Alex Berry, ‘Slovakia Issues Apology for Forced Sterilizations of Roma Women’, Deutsche Welle, (November 25, 2021), https://www.dw.com/en/slovakia-issues-apology-for-forced-sterilizations-of-roma-women/a-59926198 (accessed: December 15, 2021).

²⁸ ‘Znásilňující vojáci jsou také oběti, zastal se Duka Rusů na Ukrajině, Idnes.cz, (April 26, 2022), https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/domaci/duka-kardinal-potrat-ukrajina-znasilneni-konsent-hnuti-pro-zivot-nejedlova-zenska-lobby.A220426_121718_domaci_klf (accessed July 17, 2023).

²⁹ Adéla Karásková Skoupá, ‘Hnutí “pro život” a “pro rodiny” nejsou roztomilí křesťané, ale součást větší sítě, jíž tečou i ruské peníze, upozorňuje expert’, Denník N, (May 22, 2022), https://denikn.cz/876373/hnuti-pro-zivot-a-pro-rodiny-nejsou-roztomili-krestane-ale-soucast-vetsi-site-jiz-tecou-i-ruske-penize-upozornuje-expert/ (accessed July 17, 2023).

³⁰ Myra M. Ferree, William Gamson and Jürgen Gerhards, Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and The Public Sphere in Germany and the United States, (New York, 2002).

³¹ See, for instance, Borbála Juhás and Enikő Pap, Backlash on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Rights, (Brussels, 2018), https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/604955/IPOL_STU(2018)604955_EN.pdf (accessed November 18, 2021); Lorena Sosa, ‘Beyond Gender Equality? Anti-Gender Campaigns and the Erosion of Human Rights and Democracy’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 39, no. 1, (2021), 3–10. The issue has been extensively discussed in the political sciences, e.g. Roman Kuhar and David Patternote (eds.), Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality, (Washington, 2017); Mieke Verloo and David Paternotte (eds.), ‘The Feminist Project Under Threat in Europe’, Politics and Governance, 6, no. 3, (2018), 1–5.

³² On anti-communist sentiments, see Andrea Pető, ‘The New Monument of Victims of Military Sexual Violence in Budapest’, Hungarian Studies Review, 48, no. 2, (2021), 209–215.

³³ See, e.g. Monika Calkin and Ewa Kaminska, ‘Persistence and Change in Morality Policy: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Politics of Abortion in Ireland and Poland’, Feminist Review, 124, no. 1, (2020), 86–102.

³⁴ Kováts and Põim, Gender as a Symbolic Glue.

³⁵ Heidi Hein-Kircher and Elsia-Maria Hiemer (eds.), Challenging Norms and Narrations: Family Planning and Social Change in Europe, special issue of the Journal of Family History, 48, no. 3, (2023).

³⁶ This demonstrates, e.g. the incentivizing studies of Christiane Dienel, Kinderzahl und Staatsräson. Empfängnisverhütung in Deutschland und Frankreich bis 1918, (Münster, 1995); Cornelie Usborne, The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany, (London, 1992).

³⁷ See, e.g. Michal Korhel, ‘Children as Collateral Damage: of Nationalization Campaigns? The Persecution of “Nationally Unreliable” Persons in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War’, in: Sabine Lee and Heide Glaesmer (eds.), Children Born of War: Past, Present and Future, (New York and London, 2022), 212–231; Jakub Gałęziowski, Niedopowiedziane biografie. Polskie dzieci urodzone z powodu wojny, (Warrszawa, 2022); Henry P. David, Jochen Fleischhacker, and Charlotte Hohn, ‘Abortion and Eugenics in Nazi Germany’, Population and Development Review, 14, no. 1 (1988), 81–112.

³⁸ Denisa Nešťáková et al. (eds.), If This is a Woman: Studies on Women and Gender in the Holocaust, (Boston, 2021).

³⁹ For example, see Dalia Leinartė, Family and the State in Soviet Lithuania. Gender, Law and Society, (London et al., 2021); Yulia Gradskova, Soviet People with Female Bodies. Performing Beauty and Maternity in Soviet Russia in the mid 1930–1960s, (Stockholm, 2007); Yulia Hilevych, ‘Abortion and Gender Relationships in Ukraine, 1955–1970’, The History of the Family, 20, (2015), 86–105.

⁴⁰ Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo 5–13 September 1994 (United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex. (1995); Lucía Berro Pizzarossa and Katrina Perehudoff, ‘Global Survey of National Constitutions: Mapping Constitutional Commitments to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’, Health and Human Rights Journal, 19, no. 2, (2017), 279–294.

⁴¹ Denisa Nešťáková and Zuzana Maďaová, ‘Political Struggles over Women’s Bodies’, Leibniz Magazin, 14, (2020), https://www.leibniz-magazin.de/alle-artikel/magazindetail/newsdetails/political-struggles-over-womens-bodies (accessed July 23, 2023).

⁴² Kováts and Põim (eds.), Gender as a Symbolic Glue.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research [01UC1902].