Gender, Debt, and the Neo-Fascist Right: The Questions of Contemporary Reproductive Governance

There are three things roiling politics in these times: the rise of Right-wing, religiously inflected authoritarian nationalisms; the political economy of debt and austerity; and struggles over the politics of immigration, race, and gender (or “gender ideology”). This is not new, but it is arguably intensified in this moment, from Trumpism to Bolsonarismo to Orbanism. This paper analyses how this conjunction works through certain kinds of reproductive governance that attempt to instantiate white, heterosexual nuclear families — including the criminalization of abortion and contraception, and the taking of the children of poor people and placing them in foster care or adoptions.