| Description |
1 online resource (xiv, 327 pages) |
| Contents |
The patronymic of her choice : Nikita S. Khrushchev and postwar pronatalist policy -- Abortion surveillance and women's medicine -- Postwar marriage and divorce : the new single mother and her "fatherless" children -- Who is responsible for abortions? : demographic politics and postwar studies of abortion -- Women's reproductive right and the 1955 re-legalization of abortion -- Beyond replacing the dead : women's welfare and the end of the Soviet Union -- Epilogue : reviving pronatalism in post-socialist Russia |
| Summary |
"In 1955 the Soviet Union re-legalized abortion on the basis of women's rights. However, this fact is not widely known. In the absence of a feminist movement, how did the idea of women's rights to abortion emerge in an authoritarian society, decades before it appeared in the West? The answer is found in the history of the Soviet politics of reproduction after World War II, a devastation in which 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians perished. This enormous loss of predominantly adult males posed a threat to economic recovery. In order to replace the dead, the Soviet Union introduced the 1944 Family Law based on the proposal submitted by Nikita S. Khrushchev. This extreme pronatalist policy encouraged men to father out-of-wedlock children and celebrated "Mother Heroines." However, Replacing the Dead argues that in the absence of serious commitment to supporting Soviet women who worked full-time, the policy actually did extensive collateral damage to gender relations and the welfare of women and children. Replacing the Dead finds the origin of the movement to improve women's reproductive environment in postwar social critique arising from women and Soviet professionals. Neither Stalin, nor Khrushchev allowed any major reform, but the movement did not die out. With relegalization and lack of contraception, an abortion culture grew among Soviet women. The model of socialist reproduction continues to set socialist and postsocialist countries apart. This history is a cautionary tale for today's Russia, as well as other countries that attempt to promote births"-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 2, 2020) |
| Subject |
Abortion -- Soviet Union
|
|
Reproductive rights -- Soviet Union
|
|
Women's rights -- Soviet Union
|
|
Women -- Soviet Union -- Social conditions
|
|
Abortion
|
|
Reproductive rights
|
|
Women -- Social conditions
|
|
Women's rights
|
|
Soviet Union
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
2020026365 |
| ISBN |
9780190635169 |
|
0190635169 |
|
9780190635152 |
|
0190635150 |
|
9780190635145 |
|
0190635142 |
|
