Once women in the USSR were to join the workforce and become equal to men in social and economic terms, their decision to reproduce was supposed to be responsible and rational. Yet how were they to combine being workers and mothers, and what level of control could they have over their bodies? These questions were fiercely disputed, and no single answer was ever agreed on. In her study, Ruban explores the role of doctors in the Soviet-proclaimed emancipation of women through a microhistory of a hospital in Transcarpathia (Western Ukraine) in the 1950s–1960s. Looking at early Soviet public debates and at how abortions were performed in this postwar provincial hospital, Ruban argues that abortion was not only a social and demographic issue, therefore, challenging the view of the Soviet Union as pro-natalist from the beginning until the end. Despite concerns about the harm caused by the procedure, many doctors saw their patients as political subjects who had the right to decide their own maternity. This was possible because of their professional autonomy, even during Stalinism when access to abortion was severely restricted.
