German Reunification and Its Impacts on Women: A Closer Look at the Complex Issue of Abortion Legislation

A final decision on the abortion issue was postponed in the German Unification Treaty until December 1992, after generating so much conflict that it threatened to stall the treaty\u27s ratification. While the abortion issue still has not been finally decided, it offers a particularly interesting lens through which to examine the ways in which unification has impacted the status of women in Germany. In the following five chapters, this paper explores the impacts of unification on women in eastern and western Germany, while giving special emphasis to the issue of abortion regulation