White Replacement Fears? How Ethnonationalism Fuels Opposition to Abortion in Europe

This paper examines the role of ethnonationalist sentiment in shaping opposition to abortion in contemporary Europe. Far-right political movements increasingly deploy conspiracist narratives of “native population replacement” to evoke fears about demographic decline, cultural erosion, and the loss of traditional values. We argue that these fears manifest both outwardly, as prejudice toward perceived out-groups, and inwardly, as support for tightening social norms and opposition to practices such as abortion and voluntary childlessness, which are viewed as contributing to the in-group’s demographic and cultural decline. Accordingly, we expect out-group prejudice to be associated with opposition to these practices. To investigate these dynamics, we analyse data from the European Values Study, focusing on perceptions of abortion justifiability. We find that (1) prejudice toward people of other races, Muslims, and migrants is consistently linked to viewing abortion as less justifiable, even after controlling for ideological and socio-demographic factors; (2) these associations has grown stronger over time; and (3) are especially pronounced in countries with a larger share of foreign-born residents from ethnically distinct backgrounds. These findings suggest that abortion opposition in Europe is increasingly intertwined with ethnonationalist views.