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Paper short abstract

Drawing on ethnography, this paper examines how abortion politics shaped Poland’s 2023 elections and enabled contingent alliances between the women’s movement and the liberal opposition, while revealing the instrumentalization of reproductive struggles in times of democratic uncertainty.

Paper long abstract

Since the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party returned to power in 2015, reproductive rights have become a central site of political polarization in Poland, opposing supporters of a liberal, pro-European vision of democracy to those of a nationalist, Catholic order. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted among pro- and anti-abortion activists from the 2020 de facto abortion ban to the 2023 parliamentary elections, this paper examines how abortion politics shaped the ballot against a backdrop of converging feminist and "democratic" agendas.

The paper proceeds in three steps. First, it analyzes how political polarization both manifests itself through and configures reproductive governance, within the broader context of anti-gender politics. Second, it focuses on the 2023 electoral campaign, showing how abortion emerged as a key issue through which new alliances were forged between the women’s movement and the liberal opposition, resulting in the fall of the PiS government. Third, the paper discusses the limits of this political reconfiguration. Despite the central role played by women's mobilization in the opposition’s victory, electoral promises regarding abortion law reform have largely been abandoned. I trace these constraints to both structural and conjunctural factors: a patriarchal political culture, a fragmented governing coalition, and the PiS-controlled presidency.

Thus, the Polish case highlights how reproduction operates simultaneously as a terrain of conflict and a catalyst for contingent political alliances in times of democratic uncertainty. It further underscores the instrumentalization of reproductive struggles, which limits the translation of feminist claims into substantive rights.