To Ban or Not to Ban: Explaining Abortion Policy in Poland, Russia, and Turkey

Abstract What explains the timing when right-wing governments in backsliding hybrid regimes adopt and implement restrictive morality policies such as abortion bans? This article uses comparative historical analysis to explain the puzzle of divergent abortion policy outcomes in Poland, Russia, and Turkey. Its scope is right-wing government-led backsliding hybrid regimes in Central and Eastern Europe (1995–2022), a region historically pioneering abortion liberalization. The article inductively builds a theory of morality politics in backsliding hybrid regimes, distinct from dynamics in full democracies or autocracies. It builds on existing literature on social movements, coalitions, the chief executive, and the judiciary, while pointing out the limits of several alternative explanations (doctrine, religious-nationalist fusion, religiosity, public opinion, and transnational actors). In backsliding hybrid regimes, the strength of the anti-abortion social movement is a background condition influencing the relative level of restriction, and the chief executive’s decision is central for the choice to ban at all or even more. In this regime type, incumbents must still win elections, and some executives are more strategic than others in weighing potential political consequences of bans. The article moves the study of morality policy beyond Western democracies and has implications for public health and human rights.