The 1973 Petition for Maintaining Freedom of Abortion in Hungary (Part 2)

Abstract

In this article the author focuses on a largely forgotten petition-action that took place in 1973 in Hungary in relation to the protection of women’s right to abortion. Recently opened documents from the Hungarian National Archives (MNL) and the State Security Archives (ÁBTL), as well as interviews carried out by the author in 2015-16 with nineteen participants of the petitionaction, allow her to present the history of the petition. Part 1 of the article gives/presents a short history of the Hungarian People’s Republic’s population policies from 1956 to 1973, its conservative trajectory that led to the restriction of women’s access to abortion, situating the organisation of the petition-action in its repressive political context.  Part 2 of the article is based on the recollection of the participants in the interviews and focuses on what free access to abortion meant for the participating women and men in Hungary in the 60’s and 70’s, the ideological roots of the petition-action, their motivations, and the sanctions the participants had to face in the subsequent year.