Maternal Knowledge and Care Ethics in Navigating the Stances on Abortion Taken by Young Catholic Mothers in Poland

ABSTRACT In this paper, we explore young Polish Catholic mothers' moral reasoning on abortion. We draw on the concept of maternal knowledge and theoretical insights developed within the ethics of care to shed light on the complexities and contradictions experienced by Catholic mothers in the context of reproductive choices. The narratives we gathered through in‐depth interviews illustrate how mothers evoke embodied, experience‐based maternal knowledge to challenge hegemonic frameworks associated with legal, medical, and religious authoritative knowledges. We show how mothers engage critically with ideologized notions of sacrifice and suffering by placing these concepts in the context of relational maternal care work and argue that mothers adopt a position on the moral permissibility of abortion by reinterpreting religious norms and ideas, such as the protection of the family and vocation of care.