Abortion Rights Backlash: The Struggle for Democracy in Europe and the Americas

Reproductive rights are fundamental for the life, freedom, health, and safety of over half the world's population. Yet reproductive freedoms are under attack worldwide, even where women have achieved political rights and workplace participation. According to the World Health Organization, about a third of pregnancies end in abortion--but about half of abortions are unsafe, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths each year. Why are abortion rights backsliding, even in developed democracies? Why do some modern societies progress toward reproductive freedoms, while others regress or stagnate? And what can the struggle for reproductive rights teach us about broader movements for human rights and gender justice?

In Abortion Rights Backlash, Alison Brysk shows how threats to reproductive rights stem from a gendered political struggle over declining democracy, national identity, and widening inequality due to globalization. Formerly dominant groups facing social and economic crisis promote reactionary nationalist ideologies built around patriarchy, race, and religion as they seek to control population politics. Brysk demonstrates that this is a global phenomenon, comparing the diverging experiences of the politics of abortion in Ireland, Poland, Argentina, Brazil, and the United States (California vs. Texas). Timely and pathbreaking in its global perspective and feminist analysis, Abortion Rights Backlash transforms our understanding of human rights, the future of democracy, and the struggle for gender justice worldwide.