When Research Tackles the "Abortion Controversy"

Hélène Périvier: At the international level, conservative forces and those against reproductive rights and abortion rights in particular, strengthened during the past two decades. Those forces seem to be well organised and funded. Their narrative is designed to convince a large number of citizens that reproductive rights, more broadly women’s rights and LGBT’s rights, are a regression of modern societies. In that sense research has a lot to bring to support progressive movements and show how those rights are key for gender equality: the right of control over one's own body is a necessary condition to guarantee political, social and economic rights.

In the frame of the EU, the legislation regarding abortion rights is heterogeneous. It is surprising to notice that even in this democratic context, nothing can be taken for granted regarding this type of rights. One of the motivations to organise this symposium is to share scientific knowledge from different fields, social sciences but also medical sciences, law… and build a new path to defend those rights. Research produces rich and diverse knowledge that enlightens policy makers and gives news tools for advocacy to promote women’s rights.  I take the opportunity of this interview to warmly thank my colleague Hazal for having asked me to work with her on this topic and to co-organise the event.   

Hazal Atay: Significant changes have occurred in the abortion law and policy landscape during and since the COVID-19 pandemic. France was one of the first countries, along with the United Kingdom, to allow medical abortion through teleconsultation to ensure access to abortion during the pandemic and amid lockdowns. In an attempt to understand this policy change in 2020, we conducted a project at the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP) with Hélène Périvier and Prof. Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson. Our project aimed at understanding the drivers to telemedicine abortion in France and indeed we found that they are beyond the conditions related to the pandemic. Our findings suggest that individuals chose telemedicine abortion not only because of the lockdowns, but also because telemedicine allowed them to circumvent other obstacles they encounter in accessing care and also because they find it empowering. This made us realise that abortion law and policy landscape as it stands then not only lags behind technological and scientific innovations around care provision, but it is also not informed by women’s experiences and preferences.

Fast forward to 2023 and given all the changes we observed since the pandemic, we thought that it is time - in fact, even overdue - to make an interdisciplinary symposium to discuss the state of the art on abortion and also to update the “abortion debate” in light of the recent law and policy changes, empirical evidence and scientific inquiries.

Hazal Atay: Abortion is an essential healthcare, and it is also a fundamental human right. It is key for women’s economic and social empowerment, and has historically been a key contributor to increasing female labour force participation. Despite its multifaceted nature and spill-over effects on women’s lives and on societies at large, abortion is often confined to a medico-legal paradigm or a moral dilemma. This perspective does not adequately reflect the experiences of those who have or seek abortions, and only provides a limited understanding of what’s at stake with abortion. We need to move beyond these boundaries to understand what role abortion plays in peoples’ lives and what impact abortion rights and access have on societies at large, and this requires an interdisciplinary approach. 

The reproductive justice framework provides us with a foundation for advancing this mission, as it encourages us to move beyond the prevailing "choice-paradigm" and the narrow focus on abortion rights. With this symposium, we would like to take this forward and embrace an interdisciplinary approach to abortion to understand what abortion holds in terms of social justice.

Hazal Atay: Abortion continues to be criminalised in most parts of the world, and remains a “fragile right” even in countries where it is legalised or decriminalised. The 2022 decision of the US Supreme Court, overruling the constitutionality of the abortion right, once again demonstrated that abortion rights and access cannot be taken for granted. That being said, when we look at the global abortion landscape, two overarching trends come to the fore: on the one hand, we have countries like the US, Honduras, Hungary, Poland, and Turkmenistan restricting abortion rights and/or access; and on the other hand, we have countries like Nepal, Argentina, Mexico, etc. expanding abortion rights and access.

These trends vary and also influence one another. In South America, we refer to the "green wave", which represents a regional push for the decriminalisation and/or legalisation of abortion. In Europe and also in some other parts of the world, we discuss telemedicine abortion in the context of the pandemic and beyond. Moreover, we see that the so-called "foetal heartbeat bills" discussed in the US have also found their way into Hungary, restricting access to abortion. These developments and trends show that abortion laws and policies are not only determined at the national level, but they are also influenced by international factors and dynamics. 

This is why we have convened an international symposium with the aim to capture the evolving and concurrent dynamics of the global abortion landscape, analysing not only common trends, patterns and convergences, but also disparities and divergences.

Hazal Atay: Our overarching goal with this symposium is to navigate the “abortion controversy” with scientific inquiry, feminist approaches and women’s experiences.The symposium aims to provide a platform for exchange and constitutes an occasion to look back at the history of abortion rights and activism to inspire from history, to scrutinise the state of the art to understand where we stand today in terms of abortion rights, care and activism, and finally to discuss reproductive futures to project on different horizons and frontiers ahead of us.