Female Emancipation in Doctors' Hands:The New Short History of Abortion in the USSR

Once women in the USSR were to join the workforce and become equal to men in social and economic terms, their decision to reproduce was supposed to be responsible and rational. Yet how were they to combine being workers and mothers, and what level of control could they have over their bodies? These questions were fiercely disputed, and no single answer was ever agreed on. In her study, Ruban explores the role of doctors in the Soviet-proclaimed emancipation of women through a microhistory of a hospital in Transcarpathia (Western Ukraine) in the 1950s-1960s. Looking at early Soviet public debates and at how abortions were performed in this postwar provincial hospital, Ruban argues that abortion was not only a social and demographic issue, therefore, challenging the view of the Soviet Union as pro-natalist from the beginning until the end. Despite concerns about the harm caused by the procedure, many doctors saw their patients as political subjects who had the right to decide their own maternity. This was possible because of their professional autonomy, even during Stalinism when access to abortion was severely restricted.
Presenter:
Dr. Kateryna Ruban is a Ukrainian historian who specializes in Soviet and Ukrainian history, with an emphasis on women’s history and the history of abortion. In September 2022 she received a PhD from New York University. Before coming to the US, Kateryna was a part of the Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv. As a Junior Visiting Fellow at the IERES, she will focus on turning her dissertation on abortion in the USSR into a book. She will also continue her research on how Russian academia presents the war in Ukraine and its role in this war for the Western audience.
Moderator:
Dr. Katrin Schultheiss specializes in modern European history, with an emphasis on the history of France, women’s history, and the history of medicine. While at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Schultheiss established and directed the nation's first Model World Conference on Women's and Girls' Rights, a biannual program that brought UIC students together with underserved high school students in the Chicago area. She has taught courses on the history of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe, the history of medicine in the West, the history of feminism, and the comparative history of gender and the state in Europe and the U.S.