Thank you for joining us and congratulations on your latest book, Abortion Rights Backlash: The Struggle for Democracy in Europe and America. I want to start by setting the scene for our readers. Your book argues that the politics of abortion have changed significantly in the 21st century due to globalization. Central to this point is your observation that abortion itself has globalized: the production and distribution of abortion pills, advocacy networks and service providers, laws, and reproductive practices have all spilled across borders. Can you describe these shifts and how they have altered the terrain on which today’s struggles for reproductive rights are fought?
Yes, thank you. After several decades of writing about human rights movements and the changing terrain of their struggles worldwide, we now see increasing global influence generating human rights problems—but also the globalization of resources, tools, and diffusion effects with which movements can address human rights. So, I use the phrasing in the book of abortion rights, struggles, and democratization as a three-level game, taking off on all of those two-level game images of comparative politics and international relations and transnational social movements. Specifically in the case of abortion rights, I think that globalization comes in at perhaps three moments in the process.
First of all, there is the diffusion of dialogue about demographic panic and replacement theory and related rhetorics about reproduction that are circulating across illiberal regimes and fueling backlash. But then, since the late 20th century, there has also been the transnationalization of social movements and advocacy. The additional layer that we see with abortion politics is that it is not just a self-determination rights issue; it is a health rights issue. The globalization of health care and access means there is movement of supplies and resources and bodies across space and beyond borders. So, in the book, I talk about the globalization of abortion practice in terms of medication, markets, and migration. There are abortion medication supply chain issues, there are global advocacy networks, but there are also globalized service providers and direct assistance networks.
A fascinating example is that, about 20 years ago, a group of feminist advocates, among them a Dutch physician, set up a roving service on a boat circulating in international waters, providing abortion options for women in countries that lacked access. That was Women on Waves. It morphed into Women on the Web and has now become more of a distribution center for shipping abortion medication. This demonstrates the incredible transnationalization of this process, where the pills are being manufactured in one country, the prescriptions are being written in another, and the medications are being received and distributed by advocates and supporters in yet another. On the US-Mexico border, there are women migrating from red states to Mexico, and these “accompaniment” movements of grassroots mutual assistance that developed in Latin America domestically are now taking on a transnational face through alternative direct support networks across borders. These health access networks fall outside the state–but also outside the medical system.
All of these things—globalization and human rights claims above, below, through, and across the state—are developing in interesting ways in this area. There are parallels with the global AIDS crisis, where we saw smuggling of medication and transnational networks to contest restrictions and unequal access to medication.
You go on to look at the opposite side of that globalization process: the widespread economic and social dislocation it has produced and the ultraconservative, anti-cosmopolitan movements that have emerged in response. You argue that today’s abortion rights backlash is a product of the new power of these movements. Why has attacking reproductive rights become such an important goal for these far-right parties? Why are they so fixated with their dominant national gender regimes?
There is a longstanding feminist literature from the 80s and 90s on reproduction and nationalism. Yuval Davis’ phrase is that women are the “bearers” of the nation. This implies that the nation is constructed via control of women’s bodies and can come in the form of pro-natalism, but it can also involve birth suppression. This is the extreme, and classically fascist, mode—illiberalism to the max. That kind of illiberal nation-building prescribes pro-natalism for some and population suppression for others, through forced sterilization or ethnocidal suppression of births in different ways.
The constitution of the nation, of the state, of borders, of national security—real or imagined—and national development, particularly in post-colonial situations, are all inextricably intertwined with reproduction.
Either way: the constitution of the nation, of the state, of borders, of national security—real or imagined—and national development, particularly in post-colonial situations, are all inextricably intertwined with reproduction: biological reproduction and social reproduction. We typically and systematically see the state becoming involved in changes in family patterns and regulation during moments of crisis or war. Any time a state is being constituted, challenged, or disrupted, the reproduction regime is at issue, and there will be a struggle over the policies and direction of that. It’s almost a system necessity.
Why has attacking reproductive rights become such an important goal for these far-right parties? Here, I would like to read a passage from my book: “Nationalist reactions to neoliberal globalization may produce neotraditional ethnonationalist frames and generate neoconservative alliances for restriction of reproductive rights. In times of social crisis, deliberalizing the gender regime promises to push women out of the competitive workforce, increase the national population of threatened identity groups, restore religious governmentality to substitute for failing governance, and calm social anxieties about economic displacement and chronic insecurity, with compensatory affirmation of motherhood.”
Nationalist reactions to neoliberal globalization may produce neo-traditional ethnonationalist frames and generate neoconservative alliances for restriction of reproductive rights.
I’m glad you brought up this quote because it demonstrates the importance you give to the agency of political actors on both sides of the abortion struggle. You note a stark paradox regarding abortion policy: access to abortion is under attack in many countries, yet polls consistently show that the majority of people in Europe and the Americas are pro-choice in some fashion. Could you tell us about the strategies anti-abortion campaigns have used to continue growing their support despite these seemingly hostile conditions?
Let’s go back to the idea that the impetus for this is the reaction against liberal, globalized, capitalist democracy by a sizable minority that is losing status. Liberalism doesn’t work for them, and they cannot afford to allow all of the aspects of liberal democracy; the social contract has fallen apart for them. They don’t have enough power to restore it, but they have enough power to block things. We know that this has implications for the gender regime, patriarchal backsliding, LGBT rights, and reproductive rights.
The impetus for this is the reaction against liberal, globalized, capitalist democracy by a sizable minority that is losing status. The social contract has fallen apart for them. They don’t have enough power to restore it, but they have enough power to block things.
At the macro level, reactive backlash coalitions can block majority opinion by disabling and undermining democratic mechanisms. The clearest example is when, post-Dobbs, we see a series of state referenda and abortion rights win almost every time, even in pretty red states. However, in Florida, we saw that the initiative had majority support of 57%, but they manipulated the law and raised the threshold to 60%.
Health rights are very diagnostic of neoliberal reactionary trends in any society.
Another strategy, which is intertwined with broader dimensions of social inequity and rights, is to undermine health access so that even legal rights are not accessible, creating clinic deserts and things like that. The mechanisms are defunding reproductive rights and other healthcare access, like this current struggle that’s taking place now about Medicaid funding and the recent Supreme Court ruling. The huge and persistent struggles over the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)—even the weakest form of public healthcare in the United States—were a precursor and signal of this. Health rights are very diagnostic of neoliberal reactionary trends in any society.
The third level, getting more into group psychology and political mobilization, is racialization. It’s saying the quiet part out loud: demobilizing ambivalent voters and mobilizing latent coalitions and supporters. The US is the clearest example of this, but it absolutely happens in Europe as well; in Europe, race takes on an ethnonationalist guise while, in the US, it’s broadly white supremacist. I wrote an article before the book with a doctoral student where we analyzed the European values survey and found a robust connection between ethnonationalism and opposition to abortion, controlling for religiosity and all the usual suspects. Some American public opinion folks, looking at several election cycles, also find that racial resentment is one of the most robust predictors of abortion attitudes.
Staying on the theme of agency, do you believe that reproductive justice thus represents a weak point for illiberal movements that feminist and progressive forces can exploit?
Yes, reproductive justice can be a rallying point against illiberalism for feminist and progressive forces, and it has certainly played that role in US state referenda. However, I have a big caveat, which is that, to exploit this weakness on reproductive justice, there has to be a very conscious reversal of the illiberal anti-abortion rhetoric and framing, and it has to be articulated quite consciously and strongly with local vocabularies, repertoires, and frames. Argentina is, to me, one of the clearest cases of this: one of the reasons why the backlash was overcome is because the movement for reproductive rights tapped into a decades-old vocabulary of social justice, the whole Peronist legacy in the Argentine national consciousness. That wouldn’t work in the US: here, we have to push “freedom” as well as stories and frames that speak to self-determination.
There has to be a very conscious reversal of the illiberal anti-abortion rhetoric and framing, and it has to be articulated with local vocabularies, repertoires, and frames.
I want to dig a little deeper into the importance of executive power for today’s abortion backlash. You explore three cases where reproductive rights have been relentlessly attacked—Poland, Brazil, and Texas, which all had ultraconservative leaders. Yet, it seems to me that illiberal movements have been less able to shift abortion laws, norms, or public opinion from the opposition bench than they have with other issues, especially immigration. In the US, it seems instead that public opinion became polarized: support for abortion among Democrats has spiked since 2019. Do you agree with this portrayal? In what ways do the politics of abortion policy differ from other right-wing causes?
I think there has been a drag exerted by opposition movements, and you’re right that what puts this backlash over the top is the terms of executive power. But I think there is a much more particular political coalition or configuration on abortion issues that makes it unique. For example, the presence or absence of religious forces and institutions can play a swing role differently than in an issue like migration. In places like Argentina, the delegitimation of the Catholic Church knocks out the potentially crucial player in any anti-abortion political coalition, while the legacy of Peronism locks in a health rights vocabulary for political actors.
I’ve seen some recent cross-national case comparisons showing slightly different patterns, relative to democratic backsliding and reproductive rights, particularly in Turkey and Russia. In both cases, you have an ambivalent executive on reproductive rights who, other things equal, would like to shut them down, but you have weaker civil society partners and more politically subsidiary religious institutions, producing a kind of stagnation and undermining without formally banning. The presence of reactionary movements is a necessary but insufficient part of explaining changes on this issue.
Globally, the right wing has been able to reframe and shift discourse away from the liberal default concerning self-determination and toward a more pro-life and contested alternative to modernity.
Now, on this issue of polarization, public opinion is certainly polarized, but it becomes polarized when the issue is signaled and evoked as the position of a political party. That situation is specific to the US: party polarization on reproductive rights is not as clear in European countries with right-wing movements, for example. What is clear, though, is that globally, the right wing has been able to reframe and shift discourse away from the liberal default concerning self-determination and toward a more pro-life and contested alternative to modernity, with even a sort of ecumenical branding that goes beyond its religious origins and its Catholic or Protestant varieties. I think that is where the undermining work of the right takes place when it is not in power: not as much in the formal political system, because the coalitions aren’t quite there, but rather in shifting the framing.
In your Argentine case study, you argue that civil society mobilization and the economic and social policies of the Kirchner administrations—both anti-neoliberal—play a significant role in explaining the country’s more liberal abortion policies, even though neither of these developments was strictly about abortion. You write, “When unity nationalism leads to abortion rights backlash, it can only be contested by the struggle for democracy.” You seem to be saying that focusing solely on abortion is not enough to protect it! How does the abortion struggle relate to other economic, political, and social issues? Do progressive movements need to take on this deeper form of intersectionality to succeed?
How intersectional must abortion rights movements be? Three-word answer: totally and thoroughly!
I think the US is the very best example of that. Being more mindful of consolidating and deepening democracy, and not just counting on a judicial right to privacy, is one of the most important lessons for abortion rights movements post-Dobbs. Nationalism offers, I’m sorry to say, a much richer and more compelling political program than liberalism without additional adjectives or descriptors that include and empower.
One of the messages here is that—even and especially in an era of globalization—the nation bats last; we ignore nation-alism at our peril.
One of the messages here is that—even and especially in an era of globalization—the nation bats last; we ignore nationalism at our peril. But there are times when there are other pathways of more democratic or liberal nationalism available or, in other cases, they can be fostered. My best example of this is Ireland, where we see the transformation of nationalism initially defined by opposition to Britain and conservative Catholic identity transform into a cosmopolitan nationalism defined by membership in the EU, that goes alongside a relatively beneficial experience of globalization in the Celtic Tiger period. Even though this did bring inequality, there’s enough there to work with to liberalize nationalism and the gender regime.
We can see this in the transformation of Sinn Fein, which went from a Catholic nationalist party into a more European-style social democratic party and, along with that, in the real transformation of attitudes, including gender attitudes, across the board. Ireland legalized same-sex marriage several years before abortion was legalized. Being an Irish Catholic assumes a different meaning; it becomes a more progressive identity, as you see in contemporary Northern Ireland, where Catholics are now more liberal than Irish Protestants.
Let’s expand on these alternative nationalisms. In your 2009 book, Global Good Samaritans, you detail how some states base their foreign policy identities around global human rights promotion and humanitarianism. On abortion, you argue that efforts by Ireland and Argentina to become global human rights leaders allowed for greater penetration by transnational women’s rights groups advocating for reproductive justice. As ultraconservative forces assault multilateral and human rights institutions, do you think it is becoming harder for states to identify as Global Good Samaritans? What effect will this illiberal offensive have on transnational abortion advocacy networks in the future?
That is an excellent, insightful, and very depressing question. I think we are in a very challenging moment. The good news for all kinds of human rights promotion in the past had been the three-level game and the ways in which, not just globalization, but horizontal promotional networks across states were so helpful. We’ve taken a big hit. It’s not just that we’ve lost promoter state support in some cases, it’s that there are now active counter-networks. There’s this anti-gender movement, and there are state promoters who are across the board working against feminism, liberalism, and all aspects of democracy.
There are two potential responses. One is to rescue and model from the remaining state promoters. There’s still Canada! There are still some progressive European states. For example, in the book, I talk about how Belgium has set up funds that assist women from Poland to travel to other European states to access abortion. There are also some compensatory funding initiatives for human rights coming out of some of the progressive social-democratic states worldwide. That’s valuable and synthesizing and multiplying those efforts and focusing them is important.
These kinds of democracy promotion initiatives triage and direct resources in a very impactful way, which used to foster positive feedback linkages to global governance. But in an era of democratic backsliding and system disintegration, while it’s still necessary to monitor elections, that’s clearly not sufficient and perhaps less of a priority now—in my opinion, it will not carry the load. The other part is to foster and protect the people-to-people transnational networks that go above and below the state. For certain issues, this is where the next wave is going to be. And, when I say protect, I mean in some cases physically protect because people on the front lines of these struggles for reproductive rights, but also environmental protection, and even basic promotion of democracy, are being physically threatened.
Lastly, I’ll close with the question we always end with, about the concept of illiberalism. In your book, you refer to the ideology of anti-abortion political movements as a kind of “unity nationalism.” Why do you think that label is most appropriate? Does the term “illiberalism” have any unique explanatory value, in your opinion?
I think that illiberalism is a very useful way to characterize the systemic differences between the aspects of democracy that go beyond electoral and representative selection: the whole ensemble of rights, rule of law, and broad-based empowerment and protection of civil society, which goes back to the original mandate of liberalism and was intertwined with development, democracy, and globalization. We have a lot of illiberal electoral regimes and, beyond that, we have competitive authoritarian regimes, and what is sometimes described as “one man, one vote, one time.”
Within that framework of systemic illiberalism, the main driver of the issues that I’m discussing is a specific political program of nationalism. There is a range of reactionary political programs, including nationalism, but also, for example, some forms of religious fundamentalism that are not particularly nationalist but that are still enacted through illiberalism. I think that liberalism is a system feature, and nationalism is a political program. Therefore, it is very helpful to track what illiberalism looks like, how it has decoupled from democratization and globalization in our times, which political programs are using it, and how we can contest them.
Alison Brysk is Chair and Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. She is the author of eight books on human rights, democracy, global governance, social movements, gender rights, and Latin American politics. The latest, Abortion Rights Backlash: The Struggle for Democracy in Europe and the Americas has been published by Oxford University Press. Brysk has also edited numerous volumes, most recently Populism and Human Rights (Edward Elgar, 2023). Brysk has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center; Fulbright Professor in Canada, India, and at Oxford; Visiting Scholar in Argentina, Ecuador, Sweden, Japan, South Africa, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria, France, and Taiwan; and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
