Political Bodies: Women and Re/Production in the GDR

Abstract

The article analyzes the contradictory positions taken by the SED on the issue of abortion, reflecting the anti-feminist foundation of socialism in the GDR. Throughout the 1950s and 60s the SED engaged in an unabashed pronatalist discourse in an effort to reconstruct the family while simultaneously pulling women into the work force. By 1970, the SED had to acknowledge the failure of its propagandistic and legislative attempts to construct the socialist "working mother." The 1972 decision to legalize abortion resulted from economic constraints and marked a turning point within the SED's strategy to legislate women's place in the GDR, coincidentally providing women with the right of self-determination over their bodies. (KvA)