Anti-Feminist Foreign Policy: The Impact of Abortion Politics in the United States
2025-11-05
While scholarship on feminist foreign policy continues to proliferate, the impact of anti-feminist objectives on foreign policy requires attention. In this article, I critically examine the intersection of abortion politics and U.S. foreign policy, arguing that American foreign policy has long been shaped by an anti-feminist practice. The U.S. has systematically restricted access to abortion abroad for over 50 years through legislation and executive actions. Applying quantitative and qualitative research methods, I trace the history of abortion-related foreign policy from 1973 to 2022, analyze all congressional foreign policy bills referencing abortion, and draw on interviews with legislative staff and issue advocates from the 115th Congress (2017-18) to highlight how anti-abortion advocacy shapes U.S. foreign policy decisions. These findings suggest that while feminist mobilization has constrained anti-abortion efforts domestically in the US, foreign policy remained a key battleground where anti-feminist actors have historically been more successful. This case underscores the importance of analyzing domestic policy dynamics to understand the broader implications of feminist and anti-feminist agendas in international relations.