Medical protocols are supposed to be scientific—evidence-based, objective. And yet those regulating the interaction between a healthcare provider and a reproductive-age woman are vastly different in each European country. Our first assumption would be that the richer countries that spend most on healthcare also have the most medical monitoring, but the reverse is closer to the truth when it comes to reproductive healthcare. For example, a recent EU report noted an inverse correlation between the number of prenatal exams and a country’s GDP, though it offers no explanation for the phenomena.
It is not only birth and pregnancy that are regulated differently across Europe, but also access to contraception and abortion. Birth-control pills are available over the counter in Spain, Portugal, Greece, The Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, the UK, Slovenia, Serbia and Romania (where not only doctors, but also social workers are able to dispense them), among other countries. The morning-after pill can likewise be bought over the counter in most EU countries, except Croatia and Hungary.
It is the latter—my native country—that is also implementing some of the EU’s strictest and most complicated policies around abortion and access to contraception: reflecting the impetus of a neoconservative backlash against permissive gender roles alongside neoliberal ideas of gendered consumption. Broadly curbing the agency of its citizens, Hungary’s strict medical protocols extend to a tight control on the discourse around reproductive rights. For example, the ‘promotion of abortion’ is illegal, meaning that rights campaigners are effectively gagged. If a pro-choice NGO or an activist group wants to avoid ‘promoting’ abortion, they must use phrases such as ‘abortion is always a very tough decision’, or state that they ‘do not encourage abortion’. In employing such rhetoric, they are also coerced into reinforcing the stigma around abortion.
