Apr 1, 2026
POSTPONED: Forced Examinations, Protection of Life, and Medical Professional Ethics: Reproductive Regimes and Abortion Discourses as a History of Violence in the 1980s and 1990s
- 14:00 to 16:00
- Colloquium
- Juliane Scholz
PLEASE NOTE: This event has been postponed to a later date (TBA).
Abortion legislation represented a significant point of contention during German reunification. This talk examines reproductive regimes and epistemic violence in Germany between 1988 and 1993, focusing on abortion debates and §218 StGB (Criminal Code). During reunification, bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and societal knowledge hierarchies were actively renegotiated. Feminist and marginalized counter-strategies played a central role in these processes.
The talk explores how medical and legal authorities regulated reproductive knowledge, shaping abortion discourses in ways that embodied both violence and non-violence. Women’s experiences – particularly those of BiPoC and other vulnerable groups – were marginalized, while moral and political control over abortion was institutionalized during the widely discussed reform process of §218. Three historical cases illustrate these dynamics: forced gynecological examinations at the Dutch-German border, physicians’ involvement in pro-life movements, and racialized reproductive governance affecting migrant women.
These debates reveal how power, knowledge, and social transformation intersect to produce and contest both structural and epistemic violence, while also creating spaces for resistance within reproductive politics.
About Juliane Scholz
Juliane Scholz is a research associate at the Collaborative Research Center Sexdiversity – Determinants, Meanings, and Implications of Sex Diversity in Sociocultural, Medical, and Biological Landscapes (CRC 1665) at the University of Lübeck, where she coordinates science communication and public outreach. Her research focuses on abortion debates and epistemic injustice during German unification. She studied Cultural Studies, Communication and Media Studies, and Psychology at the University of Leipzig and completed her dissertation on the history of screenwriters in 2014.
She previously worked at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (2018–2022) and the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam (2022–2024). Her publications include:
Contact and Registration
The MPIWG Gender Colloquium 2025/26 is open to all: academics, students, and members of the public are all welcome to attend, listen, and participate in the discussion. Please register here: gleichstellung@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
About This Series
Evidently, feminist progress and male violence grow concurrently: the feminist paradox signifies that the more equal women become, the more hatred and violence they face. Today we can see misogyny —Frauenhass in German—everywhere, including new forms of violence such as cyberbullying. It is a proven fact that misogynist violence is constantly on the rise—that is, violence specifically directed at women, such as domestic violence, femicide, sexual assault, stalking, hate speech, and pathological attempts to control their lives.
Women’s right to make decisions about their bodies should be self-evident, yet it is enshrined in law in only a few countries around the world. Historical trajectories show that reproductive biases are aligned along the axes of class, race, ethnicity, and gender. Hence, we use reproductive rights as a common, intersectional thread to investigate the backlash against feminism, which has culminated in an ever-increasing onslaught. There can be no doubt that the current backlash against women’s rights goes hand-in-hand with the rise of far-right extremism.
The 2025/26 Gender Colloquium at the Institute brings together scholars and professionals from the medical and biomedical sciences, public health institutions, media and film, political and legal sciences, and the humanities to confront the issues of abortion, early marriage and female genital cutting, femicide, forced sterilization, #MeToo, and reproductive regimes.