Medicalizing Reproduction: Abortion Legislation in State-socialist Poland

In 1956, in the wake of the Soviet Union, communist authorities liberalized the anti-abortion law that the Polish People’s Republic inherited from the interwar period. Using the rhetoric of women’s health and framing their decision as a safety measure, the legislators intended to curb the high number of clandestine procedures performed outside the realm of socialist medicine. One of the aims of the new law was to contest unqualified practitioners such as quacks and “granny midwives” presented as the remnants of the old, pre-war organization of the society, medical practice in particular.

In my paper I intend to argue that one of the aims of the 1950s reproductive legislation was to medicalize abortion, constructing it as a highly complicated surgical procedure demanding professional expertise and scientific knowledge possessed only by medical practitioners. Challenging quacks and granny midwives, Polish policymakers put in 1956 Polish women’s reproductive decisions in hands of doctors who were to decide about the validity of women’s petitions for pregnancy termination.

Analyzing the archival documents of the Ministry of Health, the medical literature as well as popular magazines and periodicals, I will discuss the medicalization of reproduction under state socialism. My intention is to examine the reactions of the medical profession to the abortion legislation: both the practitioners loyal to the authorities as well as the ones following the teachings of the Catholic Church. I will also pose questions about the impact of the law on Polish women’s reproductive decisions.