Reproductive Politics: Law, Discourse and Democratic Contestation

Abstract

Across regions and regimes, reproductive politics remain a privileged arena through which states define the moral boundaries of citizenship and the meaning of life itself. Increasingly, they have also become a central battleground of the contemporary anti-gender backlash. This panel brings together research that examines how reproductive governance is enacted through law, discourse, and democratic institutions, revealing continuities between control over bodies and the management of futures. Taken together, the papers trace the multiple registers through which reproduction becomes political: as moral narrative, as object of policy, and as terrain for democratic struggle. They show how reproductive issues, including abortion, assisted reproduction, and perinatal care, are bound by a common logic that fuses protection with surveillance, and responsibility with blame. Whether through the emotional labour of legislative speech, the anticipatory moralities of early-parenting policy, or the legal framing of reproductive rights, reproduction emerges as a key site where gendered power is both reproduced and contested. The panel advances an understanding of reproductive politics as neither solely a question of bodily autonomy nor simply of rights, but as an evolving field of governance in which care and coercion coexist. By comparing cases from the United States and Europe through feminist and intersectional lenses, it examines how democracy’s gendered foundations shape who is entitled to reproduce, to decide, and to speak about reproduction. Together, these contributions shed light on how contemporary reproductive politics articulate broader struggles over moral authority, temporality, and equality in the governance of life.

Title	Details
Women's Place is in the Statehouse: The Politics of Presence in Discourse before and after Dobbs	View Paper Details
Chronopaternalism: Reproductive Justice and the Governance of Futures in France's 'First 1000 Days'	View Paper Details
Conceptualizing Abortion and ART as Reproductive Issues: Explaining Attitudes in Europe	View Paper Details
Democracy, Gender, and Abortion Law: A Global Analysis, 1996–2023	View Paper Details
Abortion Policy Design and Target Populations	View Paper Details