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.
