Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Based on qualitative study conducted in the Netherlands with abortion providers and activists, I discuss the feminist concept of “abortion work”. I demonstrate how this concept can be applied to abortion providers and activists and I investigate its informal and non-medicalised dimensions.

Paper long abstract

Based on an ethnography conducted in the Netherlands, this presentation discusses and build on the overlooked feminist concept of “abortion work”, defined as all the tasks that women have to organise to terminate a pregnancy (Mathieu and Thizy, 2023; O’Shaughnessy, 2024). By providing qualitative analysis from 17 interviews conducted with sexual and reproductive health professionals, pro-choice feminists, and experts as well as a selection of public documents, I demonstrate how the concept of abortion work can be applied to these different individuals in addition to women seeking an abortion. In particular, I investigate three dimensions of informal and non-medicalised aspects of abortion work that I argue are particularly invisible: a) logistic and financial work, b) emotional work, c) countering anti-abortion forces. Finally, by making use of a feminist social reproduction perspective, this presentation opens up the discussion on the broader invisible reproductive work that women accomplish in patriarchal capitalism.