Unmaking Russia's Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics

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Michele Rivkin-Fish

Unmaking Russia's Abortion Culture

Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics

Michele Rivkin-Fish

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English

Vanderbilt University Press
31 August 2024

Illness & addiction: social aspects; Ethical issues: abortion & birth control; Social & cultural anthropology

Series: Policy to Practice

As the predominant form of birth control in Soviet society, abortion reflected key paradoxes of state socialism: women held formal equality but lacked basic needs such as contraceptives. With market reforms, Russians enjoyed new access to Western contraceptives and new pressures to postpone childbearing until economically self-sufficient. But habits of family planning did not emerge automatically—they required extensive physician retraining, public education, and cultural transformation. In Unmaking Russia’s Abortion Culture,Rivkin-Fish examines the creative strategies of Russians who promoted family planning in place of routine abortion. Rather than emphasizing individual rights, they explained family planning’s benefits to the nation—its potential to strengthen families and prevent the secondary sterility that resulted when women underwent repeat, poor quality abortions. Still, fierce debates about abortion and contraceptives erupted as declining fertility was framed as threatening Russia’s demographic sovereignty.

Although Russian family planners embraced a culturally meaningful liberalism that would rationalize public policy and re-enchant relations, nationalist opponents cast family planning as suspicious for its association with the individualistic, ""child-free"" West. This book tells the story of how Russian family planners developed culturally salient frameworks to promote the acceptability of contraceptives and help end routine abortion. It also documents how nationalist campaigns for higher fertility worked to de-fund family planning and ultimately dismantle its institutions. By tracing these processes, Unmaking Russia’s Abortion Culture demonstrates the central importance of reproductive politics in the struggle for liberalizing social change that preceded Russia’s 2022 descent into war, repression, and global marginalization.

By: Michele Rivkin-Fish
Imprint: Vanderbilt University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780826506962
ISBN 10: 0826506968
Series: Policy to Practice
Pages: 388
Publication Date: 31 August 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

A Note on Transliterations List of Figures Preface Introduction: Through the Looking Glass Chapter 1: Birthing a Voice through Narratives of Abortion Chapter 2: Fighting for Contraceptives with Soviet Biopolitics Chapter 3: Conceptualizing Liberal Reproductive Governance Chapter 4: Adopting Global Family Planning with Neoliberalism Chapter 5: Recreating Professionals through Contraceptive Counseling Chapter 6: Feminist Activism Reborn Conclusion: Liberal Aspirations and Neoliberal Realities Appendix 1. Timeline of Key Events Discussed in the Study Appendix 2. Tables Notes Bibliography Index

Michele Rivkin-Fish is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Reviews for Unmaking Russia's Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics

“Drawing on a rich set of ethnographic data and historical materials, this incredibly important book will be widely read across a number of fields: medical anthropology, medical sociology, science and technology studies, health studies, women’s studies, Soviet/post-Soviet studies, and many others.” —Melissa L. Caldwell, author of Living Faithfully in an Unjust World: Compassionate Care in Russia