Paper
“You will never walk alone”. Rethinking Abortion Activism as a Feminist Practice of Strategic Sisterhood
presenters
Agnieszka Balcerzak
Nationality: Poland
Residence: Germany
Institute for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis, LMU Munich, Germany
Presence:Face to Face/ On Site
Keywords:
Strategic Sisterhood, Situated Knowledge, Reproductive Justice, Abortion Activism, Poland/Europe
Abstract:
After a yearlong “war on abortion” polarizing the country, a near-total abortion ban came into effect in Poland in early 2021 making abortion travels and the import of abortion pills boom. The feminist collective Abortion Dream Team opposes the ban and only since the restrictive ruling, it has helped over 125,000 people in Poland access safe abortions with more than EUR 800,000 in funding. The initiative and member of the cross-European association of feminist organizations Abortion Without Borders is aimed at destigmatizing and decriminalizing abortion. The collective’s goal is to spread knowledge and promote a positive message about abortion, based on real experiences of people who have had an abortion and their supporters. Following the guiding principles “When the law does not protect me, I will defend my sister” and “You will never walk alone”, the unapologetic and rule-breaking initiative supports women in their abortions, organizes demonstrations and workshops to teach women how to obtain and self-manage a medical abortion, and runs media campaigns to normalize abortion without deepening the stigma. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and feminist approaches to reproductive justice (Ross), situated knowledge (Haraway) and strategic sisterhood (Nyhagen Predelli and Halsaa) as a form of feminist friendship, the paper investigates the logics and strategies of abortion care provided by feminist activists as manifestation of power relations within the Polish “war on abortion”, gendered knowledge production, affective strategy of feminist activism, and aesthetic practice in popular media.