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Catholic Intimacies: Catholics Negotiating Birth Control in State-socialist Poland (1950s-1980s)

Sun, November 15, 8:00 to 9:30am, Virtual Convention Platform, Room 11

Abstract

During the second half of the twentieth century, the majority of Poles identified as Catholic, while at the same time, often using family planning techniques and technologies explicitly banned by their Church. This paper situates the (non)anxieties linked to rebelling against Catholic hierarchy-proposed rules regarding birth control in a historical perspective. Through oral history we explore how Polish Catholics negotiated their use of Church-authorised and Church-banned contraceptive methods and abortion with their lived experiences of faith. We also examine lay believers’ knowledges and interpretations of Catholic sexual ethics and assess the sources of authority they recognised.

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