ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Announcing Abortion on Television: Medical Practice as a Political Tool in Barcelona (1976–1986)

• In Event: Activist Epistemics and Artefacts 1

English Abstract

After years of mobilization, the Spanish state passed a partial decriminalisation of abortion in 1985, which feminists viewed as incomplete. That same year, the statewide feminist conference (Jornadas Feministas Estatales) was held at Llars Mundet (Barcelona), marking ten years of feminist movement since the dictator’s death.

During that conference, the abortion committees from different cities announced that they had carried out two illegal abortions as a protest against the limitations of the recent reform. This act of resistance was inherently epistemic: it questioned whose knowledge counted, whose bodies were regulated, and who had the right to define medical practices and ethics. The committees not only provided an alternative to the medical establishment but also created a new space for women's voices within the reproductive healthcare discourse.

Because the abortions they performed were still considered illegal, the procedures could not follow all official medical standards. Scientific innovation, in this case, was far from new cutting-edge technology. Instead, it involved adapting spaces to make them sterile, safe and comfortable, and developing new protocols that accounted for the constraints they were under.

The announcement of illegal abortions was clearly a form of political protest, but also a strategic move to challenge the epistemic authority of official medical practice. The abortion committees utilized medical practice as a political tool to disrupt the dominance of the state and medical establishment and, in doing so, they promoted a different kind of science: one that valued women’s embodied experiences, prioritized bodily autonomy and adapted itself to new spaces. The committees became not only political actors, but epistemic actors as well, demonstrating how activism can generate new forms of knowledge that challenge dominant scientific paradigms.

Author

• Laia Iturrizaga-Zurita, Institut d'Història de la Ciència-Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona