Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T14:02:49.044Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Good Abortion Is a Tragic Abortion: Fit Motherhood and Disability Stigma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Claire McKinney Open the ORCID record for Claire McKinney [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the context of abortion stigma, most abortion stories remain untold. The stories we do tell of abortion are often told to morally recuperate the status of the woman who has an abortion through a recourse to tragedy. Tragedy frames experiences where every choice produces some suffering, so decisions are geared toward maintaining individual integrity rather than adherence to absolute moral truths. This article argues that one dominant tragic abortion narrative, that of the disabled fetus, works to recuperate the moral status of “fit” mothers while actively constructing disabled lives as unlivable and undesirable. The option to stigmatize disability in recuperating the moral status of the woman who has an abortion relies on eugenic logics that also construct a variety of women (racialized, poor, disabled, and young) as illegitimate reproductive subjects. The article analyzes narratives of Sherri Finkbine's 1962 abortion in relation to contemporary narratives of late‐term abortions involving nonviable fetuses to expose how investment in medical judgments of good births enables particular women to make use of tragic narratives to maintain their status as moral mothers without disturbing broader abortion stigma or eugenic logics.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Spring 2019 , pp. 266 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asch, Adrienne. 1999. Prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion: A challenge to practice and policy. American Journal of Public Health 89 (11): 1649–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beisel, Nicola, and Kay, Tamara. 2004. Abortion, race, and gender in nineteenth‐century America. American Sociological Review 69 (4): 498–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bérubé, Michael. 1996. Life as We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Bluestone, Gabrielle. 2016. Donald Trump's understanding of a late‐term abortion: “You rip the baby out of the womb.” Jezebel. October 19. http://theslot.jezebel.com/donald-trump-s-understanding-of-a-late-term-abortion-1788002107.Google Scholar
Brault, Matthew. 2012. Americans with disabilities: 2010. United States Census Report Number P70‐131. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2012/demo/p70-131.html.Google Scholar
Deutscher, Penelope. 2017. Foucault's futures: A critique of reproductive reason. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doss, Erika, ed. 2001. Looking at Life Magazine. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Finer, Lawrence, Frohwirth, Lori F., Dauphinee, Lindsay A., Singh, Susheela, and Moore, Ann M. 2005. Reasons U.S. women have abortions: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 37 (3): 110–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Finkbine, Sherri Chessen. 2010. The lesser of two evils. In Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that shaped the abortion debate before the Supreme Court's ruling, ed. Greenhouse, Linda and Siegel, Reva B. New York: Kaplan Publishing.Google Scholar
Foster, Diana Greene, and Kimport, Katrina. 2013. Who seeks abortions at or after 20 weeks? Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 45 (4): 210–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenhouse, Linda. 2012. A never‐ending story. The New York Times, September 5.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1986. Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Hanschmidt, Franz, Linde, Katja, Hilbert, Anja, Riedel‐ Heller, Steffi G., and Kersting, Anette. 2016. Abortion stigma: A systematic review. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 48 (4): 169–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hansen, Randall, and King, Desmond S. 2013. Sterilized by the state: Eugenics, race, and the population scare in twentieth‐century North America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hymson, Paige. 2015. Palin: Down syndrome no reason for abortion. CNN, September 6. https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/06/politics/sarah-palin-abortion-down-syndrome/index.html.Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie. 2009. Emergency politics: Paradox, law, democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubbard, Ruth. 1997. Who should and should not inhabit the world? In The disability studies reader, ed. Davis, Lennard J. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Janvier, A., Farlow, B., and Wilfond, B. S. 2012. The experience of families with children with trisomy 13 and 18 in social networks. Pediatrics 130 (2): 293–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, Rachel K., and Jerman, Jenna. 2017. Abortion incidence and service availability in the United States, 2014. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 49 (1): 17–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kann, Sharon. 2016. Updated: Must‐read accounts from women who have actually had late‐term abortions. Media Matters for America, https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/25/six-must-read-accounts-women-who-have-actually-had-late-term-abortions/214093.Google Scholar
Kumar, A., Hessini, L., and Mitchell, E. M. H. 2009. Conceptualizing abortion stigma. Culture, Health & Sexuality 11 (6): 625–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lader, Lawrence. 1966. Abortion. New York: Bobbs‐Merrill Co.Google Scholar
Lalor, Joan G., Devane, Declan, and Begley, Cecily M. 2007. Unexpected diagnosis of fetal abnormality: Women's encounters with caregivers. Birth 34 (1): 80–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Life Magazine. 1962. Abortion: With the future dim, should the unborn die? Life Magazine, August 10.Google Scholar
Ludlow, J. 2008. The things we cannot say: Witnessing the traumatization of abortion in the United States. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 36 (1): 28–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthews, Brander. 1920. Tragedies with happy endings. The North America Review 211 (772): 355–65.Google Scholar
McClain, Linda. 2005. Deterring irresponsible reproduction through welfare reform. In Feminism confronts homo economicus: Gender, law, and society, ed. Alberton Fineman, Martha and Dougherty, Terence. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
McKinney, Claire. 2016. Selective abortion as moral failure? Revaluation of the feminist case for reproductive rights in a disability context. Disability Studies Quarterly 36 (1). http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3885/4213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McWhorter, Ladelle. 2009. Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo‐America: A Genealogy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mohr, James. 1979. Abortion in America: The origins and evolution of national policy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parens, Erik, and Asch, Adrienne. 2000. The disability rights critique of prenatal genetic testing: Reflections and recommendations. In Prenatal testing and disability rights, ed. Parens, Erik and Asch, Adrienne. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Piepmeier, Alison. 2013. The inadequacy of “choice”: Disability and what's wrong with feminist framings of reproduction. Feminist Studies 39 (1): 159–86.Google Scholar
Rapp, Rayna R. 1999. Testing women, testing the fetus: The social impact of amniocentesis in America. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Reagan, Leslie J. 2010. Dangerous pregnancies: Mothers, disabilities, and abortion in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Dorothy E. 1997. Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. New York: Vintage books.Google Scholar
Roberts, Dorothy E. 2009. Race, gender, and genetic technologies: A new reproductive dystopia? Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 34 (4): 783–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santorum, Rick, Santorum, Karen Garver, and Santorum, Elizabeth. 2015. Bella's gift: How one little girl transformed our family and inspired a nation. Nashville: Nelson Books.Google Scholar
Sedgh, Gilda, Bearak, Jonathan, Singh, Susheela, Bankole, Akinrinola, Popinchalk, Anna, Ganatra, Bela, Rossier, Clémentine, et al. 2016. Abortion incidence between 1990 and 2014: Global, regional, and subregional levels and trends. The Lancet 388 (10041): 258–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silliman, Jael Miriam, Fried, Marlene Gerber, Ross, Loretta J., and Gutiérrez, Elena R. 2004. Undivided rights: Women of color organize for reproductive justice. Chicago: Haymarket Books.Google Scholar
Torres, Aida, and Forrest, Jacqueline Darroch. 1988. Why do women have abortions? Family Planning Perspectives 20 (4): 169–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tumulty, Karen, and Itkowitz, Colby. 2015. Santorums' new book reveals how faith and love are tested by a daughter's disability. Washington Post, February 7.Google Scholar
United States Supreme Court. 1927. Buck v. Bell, 274 U. S. 200.Google Scholar
United States Supreme Court. 1973. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113.Google Scholar
United States Supreme Court. 1980. Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297.Google Scholar
Winter, Meaghan. 2013. My abortion. New York Magazine, November 10.Google Scholar