Contraception and abortion: issues of feminist struggles

Among the numerous works published on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the 1975 law legalizing abortion in France, known as “ Veil law », and 60 years of the French Movement for Family Planning, Bibia Pavard’s book stands out. By conducting an analysis of the uses and effects of gender in political and social struggles, the author renews the interpretation of the legalization of contraception and abortion, and deepens the knowledge of the cultural and social changes that it implies. The author claims to be a “ social history of politics » (p. 14), articulating sources from collective mobilizations (archives, interviews, leaflets), sources from the legislative process and media sources in order to account for the circulation of ideas and practices of the actors and actresses involved- are in a process of transformation of norms and values.

The legalization of contraception: a question of the common good

Bibia Pavard shows that in the mid-1950s, French activists of the birth control manage to open the debate on contraception by making it “ respectable ”, and that the construction of this respectability “ makes gender an argument: highlighting the feminine serves to associate positive values ​​with contraception » (p. 20). The class belonging (bourgeois) and the involvement in the Resistance of many of these activists contribute to their respectability. Évelyne Sullerot and Marie-Andrée Lagroua Weill-Hallé founded the Maternitéheureuse association in 1956 with the idea of ​​legitimizing birth control by promoting chosen motherhood, and to distinguish themselves from the subversive neo-Malthusian movement for “ free maternity », close to the anarchists. They have no prior feminist commitment, but this is their first commitment as women and in favor of women. Became French Movement for Family Planning (MFPF) in 1960, the association quickly expanded across the national territory, thanks to socialist and secular networks as well as Protestant women’s networks, and its membership increased (because to obtain contraceptives you had to be a member of the MFPF), to the point of making it appear as a “ mass movement » (p. 67). However, the social origin of the consultants is very close to that of the association’s activists (p. 67), and the wives of workers are under-represented (17 %, while they form 34 % of the active population in 1963). THE MFPF carries out a dual action of lobbying for legislative change and circumventing the 1920 law (severely repressing contraception), by providing contraceptives during medical consultations in its family planning centers. The placing of the legalization of contraception on the political agenda coincides with the entry of men, many of them doctors, onto the board of directors of the MFPF in 1961. It is no longer the gender which allows the legitimization of the struggle, but the expertise and diversity which allows a “ rise in generality » (p. 54).

The rallying of the Communist Party to the cause in 1965 (reversing its 1956 position hostile to birth control), the positions of the left candidate, François Mitterrand, in favor of contraception, and the possibility of a relaxation of the Catholic Church after Vatican II make contraception emerge as a subject of debate for the presidential elections. While it was previously addressed as a demographic issue or concerning women, the government is making it a health issue, putting its defenders under the obligation to prove the safety of the pill. The bill legalizing contraception is supported by Lucien Neuwirth, a figure of Gaullism: “ women’s rights, defended by a man, do not appear as a corporatist demand » (p. 90). Other processes at work in parliamentary dynamics, such as work in committees, are part of a “ underpoliticization » debates, when the partisan confrontation during the debates in the National Assembly is marked by a “ over-politicization » described by Pierre Lascoumes on other grounds.

The legalization of contraception in 1967 led, at the MFPFdepartures of activists and a political reorientation: the activists who remain with the association are often involved in left-wing parties and unions, and intend to do MFPF a popular education movement, opening to a wider and more popular public, with which contacts were more numerous in May 1968.

The delay (of five years) in the publication of the decrees allowing the full application of the 1967 law favors the remobilization, this time for the liberalization of abortion, of pioneers of the MFPFdoctors and lawyers, who created the National Association for the Study of Abortion in 1969 (ANEA), led by a majority of men. The legitimization of their demand for legalization of therapeutic abortion (in very restrictive cases) is based on the medicalization of the question and the “ moral righteousness » of its defenders (p. 124).

Abortion freedom: a feminist struggle

A reform in favor of abortion, in favor of its authorization for medical reasons and by doctors, seemed to be on the right track, when the publication, in April 1971, of the manifesto of 343 women declaring to have had an abortion, changed the terms of the debate in demanding free abortion at the woman’s request, and associating it with the broader struggle for women’s liberation. The alliance with theANEA is impossible.

The meticulous work of reconstructing the social trajectories of the signatories, famous or “ anonymous ”, accounts for the function of “ convergence » that abortion plays among various experiences of feminist activism (p. 141-146). Created by Gisèle Halimi to defend the signatories in the face of possible legal or professional threats, the Choisir association places emphasis, particularly during the Bobigny trial in 1972, on social inequalities in the face of abortion, with women most wealthy people who can have an abortion abroad in good medical conditions. Activists of the women’s liberation movement (MLFthen no filed “) refuse to allow these distinctions to be highlighted “ to the detriment of gender solidarity » (p. 157).

With the practice of abortions using the Karman method, learned in 1972 by far-left doctors from the Health Information Group (GIS) and feminist activists, “ it is the practice that cements the movement beyond the confrontation of discourses and strategies » (p. 163). Bringing together two objectives – doing medicine differently and fighting for the liberation of women – the MLAC associates feminists (MFPF, MLF) leftists and trade unionists (CFDT) to denounce a “ system of oppression » who practices « on the sexuality of women and men, especially from working-class backgrounds » (p. 172): the MLAC allows “ bringing together a feminist approach and a class struggle approach to the question of abortion » (p. 175).

The modes of action of Choisir, of the order of the lobby, that of MLACthe most subversive, and that of MFPFmore social (notably after the 1973 congress where the MFPF sees its leadership feminized, demedicalized and radicalized), prove complementary (p. 194), and manage to put the liberalization of abortion on the parliamentary agenda in 1974. Far from the neutralization of gender highlighted by Bibia Pavard during debates on contraception, the battle for and against the bill carried by Simone Veil, under the presidency of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, makes gender an argument: woman to be able to without calling into question gender hierarchies, the minister defends a bill which leaves the decision to abort to the woman concerned. On the other hand, gender norms create a divide between a traditionalist current anchored on the right and hostile to the liberalization of abortion, a liberal current, bringing together on the right and on the left the positions which are favorable to it in the name of the freedom of individuals, and a progressive current anchored on the left and which sees it as a means of supporting important social changes, notably affecting traditional gender roles (p. 228).

Differentiated uses of gender

However, the author clearly shows how the personification of the reform in the figure of Simone Veil causes a shift from the struggle of women towards the struggle of a woman with an exceptional history (p. 235-240): it is by distancing themselves from the feminist demand for women’s liberation that Simone Veil has reached consensus, and “ depoliticized » (p. 321) abortion ; and it contributed to satisfying “ the feminist demand for free self-determination for women, while pushing collective mobilizations off-screen » (p. 272).

The law, which was passed for only five years, makes abortion an exclusively medical act and does not provide for reimbursement by Social Security. When the “ sleeping structures » (p. 296) from previous struggles remobilized in 1977 during the Aix trial (p. 290-294) and in 1979 for the renewal of the law and the reimbursement of abortion, the movement grew considerably feminized, doctors have largely left it and professionally reinvested the expertise acquired at MLAC in more institutional positions participating in the “ space of the cause » (p. 320). THE MFPF opposes the creation of the profession of marriage counselor, sets up collective interviews, and develops links with unions and left-wing parties to “ encourage management of sexuality issues in relation to those who have training tasks or who fight at other levels against social inequalities » (pp. 285-286). Gender is more systematically associated with class relations in mobilizations. In its last chapter, by showing the role of feminists “ class struggle » in the reactivation of the movement and in the success of the two single-sex and mixed demonstrations of 1979, Bibia Pavard does justice to a movement which has written little about itself and which conflicts between numerically larger feminist movements have sometimes relegated to the background.