Abstract
Abstract Specific developments in reproductive health occurred in Eastern Europe, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. During state socialism, it was experts, not social movements, who furthered the agenda of women’s health and sexuality. New analyses from the region and written mostly by authors who speak the local languages attest to the wealth of histories, highlighting different timelines of reproductive health developments, the unexpected causes behind them, and the social actors and institutions which played decisive roles.
Highlights
There are many ways to write a history of Eastern Europe ‘into’ the broader field of the history of medicine
Specific developments in reproductive health occurred in Eastern Europe, especially in the second half of the twentieth century
With the example of the psychoprophylactic method for painless childbirth, the social anthropologist Ema Hrešanová shows how the practice was introduced in Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s as “Soviet science’s gift to women.”[33]. A highly praised method, supposedly relieving women of labor pain in 96 per cent of cases, proved less than successful in Czechoslovakia
Summary
There are many ways to write a history of Eastern Europe ‘into’ the broader field of the history of medicine. “Given the high percentage of unwanted children, the topic of happy parenthood with multiple children emerges,” wrote one of the researchers, calling for the legalization of abortion as a “highly logical” step, by which the state “relinquishes this right for the benefit of the female part of its inhabitants.”[26] Further, these experts perceived abortion as “consistent with equal rights of women, bringing about truly joyful parenthood, freed from the aspects of unwanted pregnancy.”[27] maternal health, but women’s equality became part of the legalization debate in this Eastern European country
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