Abortion, Law and Nature

Project Information

ALaN

Grant agreement ID: 101153335

DOI

10.3030/101153335

EC signature date 28 March 2024

Start date 1 June 2024

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 370 449,12

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ALaN (Abortion, Law and Nature)

Reporting period: 2024-06-01 to 2026-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This research project takes abortion as a starting point to develop a new feminist philosophy of the body that moves beyond the nature/culture dualism and renews approaches to sexual and reproductive rights. By critically examining dichotomies between the biological and social body, sex as given and gender as constructed, and technology and nature, the project re conceptualises abortion as a complex and multidimensional experience at the intersection of legal, political, scientific, and technological perspectives.

The project aims to develop a “naturecultural” philosophy of the body, bridging feminist theories with biomedical approaches in order to analyse the historical and social construction of reproductive experiences and to renew philosophical understandings of bodily autonomy and reproductive rights.

Through two complementary theoretical research objectives (RO1 and RO2), the project first investigates the historical and philosophical construction of abortion in law, analysing how national and European legal frameworks shape social and political understandings of reproduction and bodily autonomy. It then critically examines these frameworks through embodied, biological, and medical perspectives, bringing gender studies into dialogue with life sciences and medicine.

In a third step (RO3), the project analyses the practical implementation of legal frameworks through qualitative ethnographic research, combining participant observation with interviews with users and professionals in family planning centers. This research will examine representations of abortion, bodily experiences, and reproductive rights, contributing to a more situated and comprehensive understanding of reproductive justice.

The researcher will finally develop a collaboration with the FCPPF through a six-month non-academic placement (RO4), to co-produce a web series on abortion, coordinate an intersectoral network on abortion and produce a policy-oriented Guideline on abortion.

By combining legal analysis, feminist theory, biomedical perspectives, ethnographic inquiry, and intersectoral collaboration, the project develops an innovative naturecultural approach to abortion as part of the broader continuum of reproductive experiences. It advances new conceptualisations of the body, health, and reproductive justice, while translating research findings into meaningful exchanges with civil society and policymakers.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the outgoing phase, the researcher achieved significant progress along two complementary and mutually reinforcing research lines corresponding to Research Objectives 1 and 2.

First, the researcher developed a historical and philosophical analysis of legal frameworks to examine how abortion has been constructed within law, how these legal constructions shape social and political understandings of reproduction, and which conceptions of nature underpin contemporary debates on reproductive rights. This research traced the emergence of feminist conceptual frameworks developed in the 1960s and 1970s, which reframed abortion as a matter of bodily autonomy and challenged naturalistic assumptions that reduced women’s social role to reproduction. By revisiting these theoretical foundations, the researcher contributed to a renewed understanding of the philosophical and legal assumptions underlying current debates on abortion. This work provided the conceptual basis for rethinking reproductive rights beyond models based exclusively on exception, protection, or individual choice, and contributed to the development of an original feminist philosophy of the body (RO2).

Second, the researcher developed an innovative interdisciplinary approach analysing abortion through the lens of embodiment, combining feminist theory, biomedical perspectives, and phenomenological approaches to lived bodily experience. By bringing Gender Studies into dialogue with Biomedical Sciences, this research challenged the traditional opposition between the biological and social dimensions of the body and contributed to the development of a naturecultural approach to reproduction. It enabled a reconceptualisation of women’s bodies as simultaneously objects of biomedical knowledge and interventions, and subjects of embodied experiences and reproductive agency. This framework contributes to renewing feminist approaches to health, bodily autonomy, and reproductive justice by situating abortion within the broader continuum of reproductive experiences rather than treating it as an isolated legal or ethical issue (RO1).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has established a theoretical framework for articulating life-science knowledge with feminist approaches to abortion, addressing a longstanding gap between feminist theory, gender studies, and the biomedical sciences. Historically, feminist theories of abortion and reproductive autonomy have challenged naturalistic accounts that associate women with sex and reproduction, progressively developing constructivist approaches that distinguish socially constituted gender from biological sex. While this perspective has been analytically productive, the opposition between nature and culture has also contributed to a persistent separation between feminist theory and research on sexuation, reproduction, and the biological body.

The project has demonstrated the limitations of this binary framework by bringing feminist epistemology into dialogue with contemporary biomedical sciences. This analysis shows that biological knowledge cannot be treated as either a neutral foundation for naturalistic claims or as entirely external to social and cultural processes. Rather, biological research and sociocultural representations of sex and reproduction are mutually constitutive. On this basis, the project has developed a naturecultural approach to abortion, integrating biological knowledge into feminist and socio-legal analyses without reducing reproductive phenomena to biological determinism. This framework provides a novel basis for examining how scientific knowledge, representations of the body, and legal and political norms interact in the constitution of reproductive rights.

The project has also advanced the legal and philosophical analysis of abortion rights by establishing a clear distinction between the moral status of abortion and its legal regulation. The research demonstrates that, across European legal frameworks, abortion is predominantly structured through regulated freedoms, permissions, or exceptions to criminal prohibitions rather than consistently recognized as a fully established subjective right. This finding is complemented by an analysis of the gap between law on the books and law in action, demonstrating the importance of examining not only formal legal provisions but also their practical implementation and their effects on women’s ability to exercise reproductive autonomy.

Overall, the project has renewed the conceptualisation of abortion rights by integrating philosophical, feminist, biomedical, and socio-legal perspectives. It establishes that reproductive autonomy cannot be adequately understood through legal doctrine alone, but must be analysed through the interconnected dimensions of biological knowledge, representations of the body, social norms, and legal practices. This interdisciplinary framework provides a substantive contribution to contemporary European debates on abortion, reproductive rights, and the governance of reproduction.

As the project is still ongoing, further results are expected to emerge from the continuation of the research and will be incorporated into the final assessment and reporting of the project’s outcomes.