Banning abortion is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes

October 16, 2025
Seda Saluk, Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, University of Michigan

Pregnant women crossing borders to get an abortion. People who miscarry facing jail time or dying from infection. Doctors who won’t perform lifesaving procedures on a pregnant patient for fear of prosecution.
For years, this was the kind of thing that happened in Poland, Nicaragua or El Salvador. Now, it’s headline news in the United States.

As a scholar who studies the relationship between reproductive rights and political regimes, I see the U.S. mirroring a pattern that has happened in authoritarian regimes around the world. When a government erects barriers to comprehensive reproductive care, it doesn’t just cause more death and suffering for women and their families. Such policies are often a first step in the gradual decline of democracies.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/banning-abortion-is-a-hallmark-of-authoritarian-regimes-265459

EU commissioner’s women’s health vision skips over abortion issue

A new EU vision for the future of women’s rights skipped over the issue of abortion, which remains controversial across Europe despite being widely available.

Emma Pirnay, Euractiv
Mar 7, 2025

A new “roadmap” for the future of women's rights from the European Commission's equality commissioner, Hadja Lahbib, lays out her vision for women’s health. But a big question mark hangs over abortion.

Lahbib promised to improve equal access for medical care for women, including more diverse clinical trials, diagnostics and treatments during her Friday presentation of the European Commission's Roadmap for Women’s Rights.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/eu-commissioners-womens-health-vision-skips-over-abortion-issue/

07.03.2025

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African women and girls will die from unsafe abortions thanks to Trump win

Trump has emboldened anti-rights groups globally. African women will suffer as a result

Joy Asasira
8 November 2024

Trump’s presidency already looks set to have a catastrophic effect on sexual reproductive health and rights on the African continent. I work as a reproductive and gender health specialist in Uganda and we’re still feeling the impacts of Trump’s last presidency. No doubt, African women and girls across the continent are worried about how Trump’s second presidency will impact their health and lives.

In his last term, we saw an emboldening of anti-rights, anti-gender and anti-democratic forces, while Christian right values were weaponised against minorities. And this spread well beyond its borders. With his latest election win, the groups that backed his bid to power will likely feel even more emboldened.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-win-us-global-africa-women-girls-abortion/

In Poland, I Saw What a Second Trump Term Could Do to America

by Michelle Goldberg
Photographs by Rafal Milach
Feb. 6, 2024

Adam Bodnar, Poland’s new justice minister, recently explained to me the immense challenge of rebuilding liberal democracy in his country after an eight-year slide toward authoritarianism. Imagine, he said, that Donald Trump had won the last election and been in power for two terms instead of one. “What would be the damage?” he asked.

After only four years of Trump, President Biden inherited a furiously divided nation, its courts seeded with right-wing apparatchiks and the nature of reality itself in deep dispute. But as even MAGA die-hards will acknowledge, Trump often failed to bend the state to his will, which is why his allies have a plan to do things differently next time, purging civil servants and replacing them with loyalists. Poland is a country that has just gone through something like what Trumpists hope to impose on us in a second term. Its institutions have been hollowed out. Many experienced technocrats and neutral judges have been replaced by lackeys and ideologues.

Continue: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/opinion/abortion-ban-poland-democracy.html

Abortion and authoritarianism: Why women’s freedom threatens male supremacy

The notion that men are superior to women is the root of all human inequality. That's why we must fight it

By ROBERT S. MCELVAINE
OCTOBER 23, 2022

Will America's future be one of democracy and women's control over their own bodies or one of authoritarianism and forced pregnancy? The two issues most motivating Americans to vote for Democrats in the rapidly approaching midterm elections are far more intertwined than is generally recognized.

At a time when right-wing extremists are hellbent on making American states — or, as many intend the whole nation — into the fictional Republic of Gilead, it is appropriate to turn to Margaret Atwood. "Tyrants and dictators like Adolf Hitler and Nicolae Ceausescu have often dictated the terms of fertility and criminalized those who did not comply," she pointed out in 2017. "It's no accident that Napoleon banned abortion. He said exactly what he wanted offspring for — cannon fodder. Lovely!"

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2022/10/23/abortion-and-authoritarianism-why-womens-freedom-threatens-male-supremacy/

There’s a new surveillance state – and women are the target

Period tracking apps, car licence plate data and pregnancy registers are the latest tools experts warn are being harnessed to monitor women

By Harriet Barber, GLOBAL HEALTH REPORTER
7 October 2022

Surveillance data and technology are being exploited to stoke fear and prevent abortions in countries including the United States, China, Hungary and Poland.

Period tracking apps, car licence plate data and pregnancy registers are the latest tools activists warn are being harnessed to stop women using legal or geographic loopholes for terminations. All four countries have reversed abortion rights over the past two years.

Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/new-abortion-surveillance-state-keeping-tabs-women/

Hungarians protest change in abortion rules

September 28, 2022

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - More than 1,000 Hungarians protested on Wednesday against a change in abortion rules that took effect on Sept. 15, which women's rights groups say would "humiliate" and torment women while having no effect on the number of abortions.

Under the rules amended by Conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government, pregnant women must submit evidence from their healthcare provider of a definitive sign of life, widely interpreted as the heartbeat of a foetus, before requesting the procedure.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarians-protest-change-abortion-rules-2022-09-28/

28.09.2022

Hungarian women dismayed at ‘tormenting’ abortion reform

By Krisztina Fenyo, Reuters
September 15, 2022

BUDAPEST - Hungarian women voiced dismay as an amendment to abortion rules took effect on Thursday in what some see as a first step towards a tightening of access to the procedure under a deeply conservative government.

Interior Minister Sandor Pinter submitted an amendment to abortion rules this week requiring pregnant women to submit evidence from their healthcare provider of a definitive sign of life, widely interpreted as the heartbeat of a foetus, before requesting the procedure.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarian-women-dismayed-tormenting-abortion-reform-2022-09-15/

15.09.2022

Hungary tightens abortion access with listen to ‘foetal heartbeat’ rule

Fears move will pave way for more restrictions in country where terminations are widely accepted

Weronika Strzyżyńska
Tue 13 Sep 2022

Hungarian women seeking an abortion will be obliged to “listen to the foetal heartbeat” before they can access the procedure, according to a new decree issued by the government of the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

The new regulation is due to come into force on Thursday.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/13/hungary-tightens-abortion-access-with-listen-to-foetal-heartbeat-rule

13.09.2022

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The network of organisations seeking to influence abortion policy across Europe

The ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right network is allegedly seeking to replicate anti-choice efforts in the US

Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Flora Garamvolgyi
Thu 26 May 2022

A network of ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right organisations is building momentum in its quest to influence abortion policy in Europe as the US supreme court considers striking down Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised the procedure in America.

Elements of the network originally came together under the name Agenda Europe, holding yearly summits across the continent between 2013 until at least 2018, by which time it had grown to comprise 300 participants, including politicians and Vatican diplomats.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/26/the-network-of-organisations-seeking-to-influence-abortion-policy-across-europe