Abortion, Law and Nature

The ALaN project brings together philosophy, gender studies and life sciences to question the impact of representations of nature on women's health and rights, starting from the specific case of abortion.

The objective is to renew the philosophical approach to abortion, to enlighten the European public debate thanks to an interdisciplinary and intersectoral research. [1] Starting from a philosophical clarification of the notion of ""nature"", it will question the representations of nature that underlie the debates on abortion in order to open up the possibility of a dialogue between Gender Studies and biomedical sciences. [2] The project will rely on this renewed approach to abortion to compare the sources available at the level of the EU and the Council of Europe (incl.

ECHR) to define abortion rights, and examine the representations of the body that emerge from these sources. [3] Confronting law with obstacles women actually encounter when they seek abortion, the project will set up an ethnographic study at family planning centres (FCPPF, Belgium), to measure the impact of legislation on women's lives and health, and to test the hypothesis that the legislator has a role to play in advancing gender equality. [4] This research will lead to a six-month non-academic placement as a consultant and a network facilitator at FCPPF, that will lead to the publication of a European Guideline.

The research strategy adopted is innovative: interdisciplinary (renewing key philosophical concepts by integrating data from other disciplines, esp. biomedical sciences); intersectoral (comparing legislation to the reality on the ground); ""bottom-up"" (making room for women's lived experience through ethnographic investigation and collaboratoing with non-profit organizations).

The project will produce 6 articles, a monograph, 2 conferences, several seminars and a podcast for the general public.