Explore Highlights from the Sciences Po Symposium on Reproductive Rights in Europe

The controversies surrounding abortion are reignited once again as we witnessed the USA Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade and France constitutionalising abortion rights. Abortion rights and access continue to be debated and contested not only in countries where abortion is still restricted but also where it has been decriminalised and legalised.

On 1 December 2023, Sciences Po’s Gender Studies Programme held a Symposium on Reproductive Rights in Europe, headed by Hélène Périvier, French Economic Observatory (OFCE) economist, and Hazal Atay, Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP) post-doctoral researcher. The Symposium convened researchers from different disciplines to navigate the abortion controversy through academic inquiry to enrich the public debate and fuel it with scientific knowledge in medical sciences but also in social sciences, discussing reproductive rights, futures, and justice.

Reproductive rights are usually discussed within the restrictive framework of health policy and have come to be confined to a medico-legal paradigm. However, researchers have also highlighted that access to contraception and abortion contributes to women’s empowerment, often measured through educational attainment and labour force participation, with spillover effects across generations and broader implications for societies. 

In the future, Sciences Po's Gender Studies Programme wants to advance this research agenda in the European context and to shed light on the role of reproductive rights, particularly abortion rights and access, in furthering women’s economic emancipation and gender equality.