Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T12:37:07.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Regulation of Abortion as State-Socialist Governmentality: The Case of Czechoslovakia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2012

Radka Dudova
Radka Dudova
Affiliation:
Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the countries of the former Eastern bloc (and the USSR), abortion politics followed a different historical path than in Western Europe. In Czechoslovakia, abortion was made legal relatively early on, almost as soon as the social and political turmoil that followed World War II and the communist coup in 1948 had settled. Unlike in Western Europe, however, it was not legalized in response to pressure from civil society or the feminist movement. It was a bureaucratic decision made in relation to specific macrosocial and political circumstances. The Czechoslovak Act on Artificial Termination of Pregnancy in 1957 made abortion legal on certain conditions. Special commissions were established and endowed with the authority to decide whether to grant women permission for abortion on demand. The decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy was thus not placed directly in the hands of women.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 123 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barry, Andrew, Osborne, Thomas, and Rose, Nikolas. 1996. Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Rationalities of Government. London: University College London Press and Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Burchel, Graham, Gordon, Collin, and Miller, Peter, eds. 1991. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Center for Reproductive Rights and Poradňa pre občianske a l'udské práva. 2003. Body and Soul: Forced Sterilization and Other Assaults on Roma Reproductive Freedom in Slovakia. http://reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/bo_slov_part1.pdf (Accessed November 27, 2011).Google Scholar
Černý, Miloš. 1971. “Perspektivy uplatnění genetiky v populační politice [Perspectives of the application of genetics in the politics of population].” Demografie 13 (2): 109–20.Google Scholar
Císařovská, Blanka, and Prečan, Vilém. 2007. Charta 77: Dokumenty [Charta 77: Documents]. Prague: Institute for Contemporary History AV ČR.Google Scholar
Dean, Mitchell. 1999. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Dean, Mitchell, and Hindess, Barry. 1998. Governing Australia: Studies in Contemporary Rationalities of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dejmek, Jan. 1972. “Demografie jako inspirace pro populační genetiku [Demography as inspiration for population genetics].” Demografie 14 (2): 97–109.Google Scholar
Dudova, Radka. 2010. “The Framing of Abortion in the Czech Republic: How the Continuity of Discourse Prevents Institutional Change.” Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review 46 (6): 945–75.Google Scholar
Fajfr, František. 1964. “Děti mrtvě a smrtelně narozené [Still-born children].” Demografie 6 (3): 248–259.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1971. L'ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980a. An Introduction. Vol. I of The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980b. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings (1972–77). New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” In: Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, ed. Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Rabinow, Paul. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 208–26.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1988. “Technologies of the Self.” In: Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. Martin, Luther H., Gutman, Huck, and Hutton, Patrick H.. London: Tavistock, 16–49.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1991. “Governmentality.” In: The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 87–104.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2003a. Le pouvoir psychiatrique: Cours au Collège de France. 1973–1974. Paris: Gallimard, Hautes Études.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2003b. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–76. New York: Picador.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2004. Naissance de la biopolitique: Cours au Collège de France. 1978–1979. Paris: Gallimard, Hautes Études.Google Scholar
Hasmanová Marhánková, Jarmila. 2008. “Konstrukce normality, rizika a vědění o těle v těhotenství: Příklad prenatálních screeningů [Construction of normality, risks and knowledge about the body in pregnancy: The case of prenatal screening].” Biograf 15 (47). http://www.biograf.org/clanky/clanek.php?clanek=v4702 (Accessed November 28, 2011).Google Scholar
Heitlinger, Alena. 1987. Reproduction, Medicine and the Socialist State. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hindess, Barry. 2001. “The Liberal Government of Unfreedom.” Alternatives 26 (2): 93–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalinová, Ludmila 1999. K sociálním dějinám Československa v letech 1969–1989 [Social history of Czechoslovakia in years 1969–1989]. Prague: VŠE.Google Scholar
Lemke, Thomas. 2007. “An Indigestible Meal? Foucault, Governmentality and State Theory.” Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory 8 (2): 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludwig, Gundula, and Wohl, Stefanie. 2009. “Govermentality and Gender: Current Transformations of Gender Regimes Revisited from a Foucauldian Perspective.” Presented at the ECPR Conference on Gender and Politics, Belfast.Google Scholar
Motejl, Otakar. 2005. Závěrečné stanovisko veřejného ochránce práv ve věci sterilizací prováděných v rozporu s právem a návrhy opatření k nápravě [Final statement of the Public Defender of Rights in the matter of sterilisations performed in contravention of the law and proposed remedial measures]. Brno: Public Defendor of Rights.Google Scholar
Musilová, Dana. 2007. Z ženského pohledu. Poslankyně a senátorky národního shromáždění Československé republiky 1918–1939 [From the women's perspective: Women MPs and senators in the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918–1939]. České Budějovice: Veduta.Google Scholar
Power, Elaine M. 2005. “The Unfreedom of Being Other: Canadian Lone Motherś Experiences of Poverty and ‘Life on the Cheque.’” Sociology 39 (4): 643–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radvanová, Senta, Nezkusil, Jiří, and Novotný, Oto. 1957. “Pro zdraví žen [For the health of women].” Literární Noviny 6 (27): 9.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas, O'Malley, Pat, and Valverde, Mariana. 2006. “Governmentality.” Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences 2 (December): 83–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigley, Gary. 2006. “Chinese Governmentalitites: Government, Governance and the Socialist Market Economy.” Economy and Society 35 (4): 487–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Jennifer Lynne. 2003. “‘Suitable Mothers’: Lesbian and Single Women and the ‘Unborn’ in Australian Parliamentary Discourse.” Critical Social Policy 23 (1): 63–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sojka, Ján 1966. “Problém nejen populační [Not only a population issue].” Vlasta 20 (45): 6.Google Scholar
Tinková, Daniela. 2004. Hřích, zločin, šílenství v čase okouzlování světa [Sin, crime, and madness in times of disenchantment of the world]. Prague: Argo.Google Scholar
Wolchik, Sharon L. 1983. “The Scientific-Technological Revolution and the Role of Specialist Elites in Policy-making in Czechoslovakia.” In Foreign and Domestic Policy in Eastern Europe in the 1980s, ed. Sodaro, Michael J. and Wolchik, Sharon L.. London: Macmillan, 111–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar