Politics & The Body: Abortion

Beyond Choice

In Japan, the fetus is humanized in many contexts, and yet abortion is ethically acceptable.

The question of when life begins, central to U.S. abortion politics, is less important to the Japanese ethical framework.
The focus is neither on the rights of the mother nor on the personhood of the fetus, but rather on the social life of the child, the welfare of the family, and the question of the social good more broadly.
EXAMPLE OF THE SOCIO_IDENTITY found in Japan rather than our individualism
In Japan, as elsewhere, a mother is trusted to make the decision about the fate of her fetus not because she has freedom of “choice” but rather because she is its trusted caregiver;

a parent alone can provide her child with an appropriate environment.
Japanese parents do live with deep psychic tensions between the acceptance of the humanity of the fetus and the pervasive practice of abortion.

This notion of abortion as a social necessity differs from the notion of abortion as a “right” and deemphasizes the dividing lines between “life” and “choice.”
Japan was one of the first nations to permit legal abortion, the law was passed from on high and reflects less concern with women’s “choice” or sexual freedom than with producing appropriate mothers and children
What makes the German and Canadian legislation stand out in contrast to Roe v. Wade, is their focus on protection. German law, like West European law more broadly, emphasizes public health and humanitarian justifications for the practice of abortion: the social costs of unwanted pregnancy, health risks to women, the psychic toll of raising unwanted children, and the state’s positive obligation to protect women.
In contrast, Roe v. Wade defined the right to first-trimester abortion primarily in terms of negative liberty—the right of the individual to decide for herself whether abortion is appropriate; it deliberately and explicitly excluded the possibility of the state’s consideration for women’s broader social circumstances.

When the Punishment is Pregnancy

adjudication and restriction of abortion access for incarcerated people exemplifies the intimate violence imposed by the state on women’s bodies, from the classic bodily control of regimented confinement to the structural and racialized violence of U.S. mass incarceration.
Importantly, correctional officers cannot refuse to guard a person convicted of murder. They cannot refuse to escort a woman to the hospital for childbirth. But they can, apparently, refuse to transport her for an abortion.
The designation of abortion as elective has roots in the medicalization of abortion, which led in the early twentieth century to the formation of so-called therapeutic abortion committees that adjudicated whether a woman’s reason for requesting an abortion was valid.

This idea created a hierarchy between a legitimate and an illegitimate abortion
The hierarchy persists in medicine today: physicians (even prochoice, abortion-providing ones) speak of indicated abortions—those done in cases of a fetal abnormality or a mother’s debilitating medical condition—and elective abortions.
Speaking in the language of “a woman’s right to choose” proves incongruous in the prison’s local world (where women lose their individual rights)

Female Infanticide in India

In many Asian countries, deeply rooted traditions and a cultural preference for male children, but also discriminatory family and property laws have led to harmful practices which ensure the birth of a male child.

These practices include sex selective abortions but also the post-natal killing or neglect of girl babies.
Today, because of the deliberate elimination of girls, more than 160 million women are missing on the Asian continent.
In India, where the gender ratio is particularly imbalanced, the distorted masculinization of the society accentuates a climate of violence and discrimination against women and girls.

until the age of 5, their mortality rate is 75% higher than that of boys
The annihilation of baby girls has additionally been exacerbated with a modern desire for smaller families and new technologies that identify the sex of a fetus.
girls are also subject to discriminatory attitudes with regards to postnatal care, breastfeeding, food allocation, proper clothing, parental surveillance, health care, education and immunization.
Some women experience violence and abandonment when giving birth to a daughter or when refusing to engage in practices of sex selection.
the fear to see their daughter suffer and being neglected by the family additionally compels women to engage in practices of sex selection or infanticide.

Backlash and Continuity

The history of abortion illustrates the way the women's bodies have been policed and controlled
The focus on fetal rights has further disembodied women and removed agency over their bodies

women of color, criminal, and those seeking a legal abortion may be forcibly sterilized if it is perceived that they are a threat to a potential fetus
The determination of when life begins is essential. If life begins at conception, all abortion is defined as murder
the fetus is seen as separate from the mother and its interests are therefore separate from the mother which is false. The pregnant mother and fetus are one entity on which the fetus is dependent

Mediated Bodies

The use of computer generated fetuses in advertising is not separate from the abortion debate

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