While the presidential election momentum flourished over the past six months, I was busy embracing my inner nerd and watching every single Democratic National Committee (DNC) debate from a live stream on my laptop. As the debates rolled in, I kept up with the cultural commentary from feminist new sources on social media. Prior to the February 11th debate, NARAL Pro-Choice initiated a hashtag (#AskAboutAbortion) to demand the deliberate discussion of reproductive health care in the televised debates. While both democratic candidates have issued statements in support of access to abortion and affordable health care, the widely-broadcast debates had not explicitly brought up the subject of reproductive healthcare as more than a fleeting, tertiary issue.
#AskAboutAbortion has grown momentum as a hashtag over the past three DNC debates, but the moderators have not budged, and the debate has largely remained silent on abortion. What does that really say? Forty years after the passing of Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the United States, what could there be left to said reproductive justice in America?
In February's DNC debate, there was much to be said about reproductive justice euphemistically, as examined in an article titled aptly titled, "Clinton and Sanders had to use 252 words to avoid saying 'abortion' during the presidential debate." The article noted that Clinton thanked the Planned Parenthood Action Fund during one debate for its endorsement, but failed to acutely elaborate on why she merited the support. Clinton stated:
"And I was very proud to get the endorsement of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, because I’ve been a leader on these issues. I have gone time and time again to take on the vested interests who would keep women’s health care decisions the province of the government instead of women ourselves." (x)
Forty years after Roe v. Wade, cultural discussion around abortion is still limited to its legalization and choice politics. Even the word "abortion" is still rather taboo for cable television. Issues of accessibility and affordability are danced around, but never critically engaged. Contraception and birth control are also left off out of the rhetoric, both in conjunction with abortion rights and as their own complex issues. "Women's health care" and "women's choices" become loaded, pointedly vague terms (if not also exclusionary by device of gender).
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From candidates like Clinton and Sanders who have openly expressed support for "women's health care," I ask more than the continued, passive support of a law passed forty years ago. What exactly does supporting "women's health care" look like beyond upholding federal laws? Does advocating for "women's health care" also address intersecting issues of accessibility and affordability that slip through the cracks of federal legislation? Does "women's health care" service all women? Why is "women's health care" an appropriate moniker to use on cable television, but "abortion" not, which loops me back to a monumental question of rhetoric that does not take 252 words to ask:
"What is Abortion?”
In reading The Global Biopolitics of the IUD by Chikako Takeshita, I was struck by this question put forth by Mary Calderone, the former medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (Takeshita 107). Calderone was speaking in 1962, in reference to the new technology of the IUD. While the IUD was shown to work as highly effective birth control, the exact mechanism of the IUD was (and still is) unknown. One theory argues that the IUD works as an anti-fertilization device, or contraception, in that it prevents the fertilization of an egg. A competing theory argues that, instead, the IUD works as an anti-implantation device, allowing for the fertilization of an egg but impeding the implantation of the fertilized egg to the uterine wall (108).
At first glance, these theories seem hooked on a technicality, but herein lies difference, to some, between what is abortion and what is not. The latter theory thus argues that the IUD operates as an abortifacient, which, although hinging on a technicality, operates as a powerful rhetorical device. The classification of "abortion" versus "not abortion" greatly alters the cultural, moral, and emotional narrative. (Additionally, the anti-implantation argument relies on the assumption that all fertilized eggs will naturally and eventually become attached to the uterine wall, which is simply not true. This definition of abortion neglects the cases fertilized egg fails to attach naturally.)
Strikingly, it is impossible to know the moment an egg becomes fertilized, as science has not afforded us this precision (yet). I find it incredibly onerous that the moral quandary between what is abortion and what is not centers on a physically unknowable moment. I believe that the philosophical problem of rooting a substantial moral fission (pro-abortion/anti-abortion) in a physically unknowable moment (fertilization of the egg) only serves to perpetuate greater disparity between the pro-abortion/anti-abortion perspectives. I believe that this physically-ambiguous moment rhetorically and poetically serves to further advance the cultural ambiguation of abortion.
But what do I mean by cultural ambiguation? I am thinking of the ways in which we hear "women's health care" and must make the link to abortion ourselves, the ways in which abortion procedures are framed as clinical and sterile and esoteric, and the long-winded ways euphemisms we employ to keep from saying the word 'abortion'. Last spring, I attended the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) conference for reproductive freedom, which served as a hub for U.S. The goal many of the reproductive justice organizations at the conference was to overturn cultural stigmas and silence on abortion, such as The 1 in 3 Campaign who set out to spread the word that, statistically, 1 in 3 women in the United States will have an abortion during their lifetime. Organizations like this combat the cultural ambiguation by spreading knowledge and breaking down the devices that have framed abortion as unknowable and abstract.
Since abortion has been legal in the United States since 1973, why does the rhetoric matter? Why does it still matter if the IUD is classified as contraception or abortifacient if both are legal? While Takeshita discusses the weight of this rhetoric across the cultural landscape of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, I believe the moral fission of contraception/abortifacient is painfully relevant in today’s culture. First, the legalization of abortion (or lack thereof) is just one way of controlling access to abortion services (and unsuccessfully, at that). Even if abortion is technically legal, abortion is not equally accessible across the United States. Physical distance serves as one major factor in accessibility. While larger or more progressive cities may have walk-in abortion clinics in the route of public transportation, abortion-seekers in rural or conservative areas may have to travel great distances or across state lines to receive access to abortion services, if they can even find the means to do so. Access to healthcare. healthcare coverage, and socioeconomic class serve as other major factors in accessibility.
But even abortion seekers with the best healthcare and the most accessible and charismatic clinics are still often subject to clinic harassment by antiabortion picketers and protesters, as simulated in this video released by Planned Parenthood. Harassment and stigmatization, as well as more subtle antiabortion tactics, can sway the decisions of abortion-seekers, even in situations where abortion is legal and accessible. Illustrated through this dilemma, we can see how Foucault’s theory of biopower works to inhibit and control abortion access independent of federal legislation; we see this through the ways biopower controls and disciplines bodies through invisible relations of power. Even where abortion is a legal and accessible procedure (and even in the United States, this is not true), Biopower might impede access to abortion through perpetuating cultural shame and stigma or other fear tactics. Even today, if the IUD is named as a contraception, IUD-users are still subject to shame, guilt, and humiliation.
Biopower makes it difficult to ask (let alone talk) about abortion and contraception. Clearly, even when abortion is legal, abortion is not cleared of shame or stigma. So what's the solution? How do we begin to break down the systems of shame enforced by biopower or get our nation's leaders to talk?
I don't have the solution.
But when I attended CLPP last spring, I was exposed to groups of radically passionate and caring people forming coalitions and embarking in difficult and groundbreaking conversations. I think they're doing a great job at building at breaking down abortion stigmas and building an inclusive activist network. Even if our democratic presidential candidates aren't talking on-air, a transformative, radical conversation around reproductive health care and abortion has already begun. The question is, in fewer than 252 words, how do we begin that conversation?
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