Cselekvőképesség és haszonélvezet: nők politikai szerepe a reprodukciós döntéshozatalban (1914–1944)

Abstract

: This study outlines the development of family planning in national frame with particular reference to the female agents of healthcare and social policy measures since the turn of the centuries 19-20 th down to 1944. While connecting the medical, political, and social discourses based on archival and press sources on family planning, we analyze the role and agency of three women’s organizations: the Hungarian Midwife Association (1894–1944), the National Stefánia Association (1915–1940) and the Green Cross Health Protection Service (1927–1945). Furthermore, it is aimed to display the process of disintegration of traditional midwifery by examining the expansion of the nurse system and its relations to the political elite of the Horthy regime. By integrating documents on family planning such as journal articles, political speeches and criminal abortion data into the national and political discourses, this study claims that women have often played contradictory roles in the process of family planning. Midwives and nurses who served as gatekeepers either helped women by providing access to birth control and abortion or complied with regulations of the pro-natalist state, depriving this way women of choice.