Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
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Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy: An Anthropological CritiqueAuthor(s): Lynn M. MorganSource: Hypatia, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer, 1996), pp. 47-70Published by: on behalf ofWiley Hypatia, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810321Accessed: 22-02-2016 04:17 UTC
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FetalRelationalityn Feminist
Philosophy:
An
Anthropological
Critique
LYNN M. MORGAN
This
essay
critiques
eminist
treatments
f
maternal-fetal relationality
hat
unwittingly
eplicate
eatures
of
Western
ndividualism
for
example,
he
Cartesian
divisionbetween he
asocial
body
and the
social-cognitive
erson,
or the
conflation f
socialand
biological
irth).
I
argue
or
a more
reflexive
erspective
n
relationality
thatwould
acknowledge
ow
we
produce ersons hrough
ur actionsand rhetoric.
Personhood
nd
relationality
an
be better
nalyzed
s
dynamic,
negotiated ualities
realized
hrough
ocial
practice.
As
fetuses
figure
ever more
prominently
in
the American
social
imaginary,
feminist theorists arecompelledto take notice. The manypathsthroughthis
politically charged
errain
are
all
lined with
contradictions,
creating
a seriesof
persistent
conundrums or
feminist
analysis.
One oft-traveled
road steersclear
of fetuses as an
object
of
study;
ts
proponentsargue
that
to
put
the unborn
at the
center of
analysis
is to
be
co-opted
by
pro-life
strategies
ntended to
divert
attention from women in
the debate over
abortion.Susan
Sherwin,
for
example, suggests
that a
focus on
the fetus is the
defining
characteristicof
nonfeminists
(1992,
101),
and
Janice
G.
Raymondargues
hat
feministsand
fetalists arenot alignedin anyway (1987, 65).1A morerecentlyblazedtrail
acknowledges
hat fetuses
attain social
meaning through
events
not
necessar-
ily directly
related to
abortion.
One
fork
of this
trail winds
through
cultural
studies,
where authors
analyze
fetal texts
and
social
scripts
to
show
that,
as
metaphors,
etuses wield
increasing
social
power
(Berlant 1994;
Duden
1993;
Franklin
1992;
Hartouni
1991,
1993, 1994).
Another
fork
leads into
sociolog-
ical
territory,
where
the
identification,
commodification,
medicalization,
and
legalization
of
fetuses is
documented and
scrutinized
(Boling
1995;
Casper
1994; Daniels 1993; Franklin and Ragone n.d.; Ginsburgand Rapp 1995;
Hypatia
ol.
11,
no. 3
(Summer
996)
?
by
Lynn
M.
Morgan
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relacionalidad entre madre y feto
que replica categorías del
individualismo
perspectiva más reflexiva respecto a relacionalidad ...personas a
través de acciones y retórican
terrenopolíticamentecargado
posiciones:poner al fetocomo objetoes caer enestrategiapro vida
adquierensignificadossociales nonecesariamente respectoa aborto
desdesociología,donde lamedicalización ylegalizaciónde los fetos
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Hypatia
Morgan
n.d.;
Rapp
1987,1988,1990,1993;
Roth
1993;
Rothman
1986;
Taylor
1992). These authors, all writing from a feminist perspective, document
society's
current obsession with
fetuses,
but,
with a
few
exceptions,
do
not
examine the
practical implications
of this trend for feminist
analysis.
There
is
another
trail,
narrow
and
steep.
The
explorers
who venture here
have become convinced
that
feminism's
ong-standing
nattention
to
fetuses
has
become a
political liability.
It is
unwise,
they
argue,
for feminism to
continue
to
deny
the
increasing
and
undeniable
moral and social
importance
given
to fetuses
n
European
and North American
society.
They
point
out that
the old maps-the ones that circumventfetal terrain-lead us unwittinglyto
collude
with
architects
of the
anti-woman backlash
who
portray
eminists as
anti-mothersand child killers.
As
feminists, therefore,
they
are
beginning
to
place
fetusescloser
to
the center
of
analysis.
Susan
Bordo,
or
example,
asserts
that we
should
never have
permitted
the
debate
over the status of the fetus
to have achieved
center
stage
in the
public
imagination,
but
ought,
rather,
o
have
attempted
to
preempt
that
debate
with a
strong
feministperspective
acknowledging
and
articulating
he ethical and emotional value
of
the fetus
(1993, 95;
emphasis
n
original). Increasingly,
eminist social scientists,histo-
rians,
and
philosophers
are
beginning
to confront
directly
the
disquieting
implications
for
feminist
analysis
of the
increasing
social
value accorded
fetuses.
They
submit-tentatively,
and
fully cognizant
of the
political
quag-
mires that
lie ahead-that
the
old
paths
lead to sites
we
no
longer
wish to
inhabit
because
they
leave out
significant
dimensions of women's
experience
(see
Addelson
1987,
1994;
C.
Condit
1990;
Daniels
1993;
Porter
1994;
Shrage
1994;
Tsing
1990).
The
time
has come
to
move toward Bordo's
vision of
feminist
perspectives
on fetuses.
There
is much
to
intrigue
and excite within this
new
region
of feminist
inquiry.
Barbara
Katz Rothman was
a
pioneer
with
her
1986
book,
The
Tentative
Pregnancy,
which directed us to the
changing
notions
of
incipient
(fetal
and
infant)
personhood
being
made
possible
by
the
widespread
use of
reproductive
imaging
technologies.
Rosalind
Petchesky,
another
pioneer,
addressed
the dilemmas
of fetal
personhood
in
her classic
Abortion
and
Woman's
Choice
1985).
Linda
Layne's
workon
pregnancy
oss reminds
us
that
we
have at best
ignored
(and
at worst
deliberately
silenced)
an
important
dimension
of the lived
experiences
of women who cherish fetal
life
(Layne
1990,
1992).
Elisabeth
Porter
(1994)
argues
or
a moral
praxis approach
o
abortion
ethics that
would make moral
judgments
about abortion
contingent
on a wide
variety
of
specific, pragmatic
considerations.
But
my
explorations
along
this route also
uncovered a
line of
reasoning
I
find
problematic,
f well-intentioned.
Acknowledging
the fetal
realpolitik
of
our
times,
some feminist
philosophers
are
attempting
to
construct
a vision of
fetal
morality
and
personhood
consistent
with
woman-centered,
pro-choice
politics.
I
will
be
taking
issue with one dimension
of their
work,
namely,
their
48
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propuesta esexaminar lasimplicaciones prácticasde esto parael análisisfeminista
Problema deestereconocimie
nto:visión moralde
personhood,centrada enmujeres ypro-choice
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Lynn
M.
Morgan
arguments
concerning
the moral
superiority
of relational over
individualistic
oncepts
of
personhood.
They use this point to arguethat
fetuses,
devoid
of
sociality
and
relationality,
cannot and should
not
be
consid-
ered
persons
until
birth.
Anticipating
the
critique
that
follows,
I
should
state
here that
I commend and
support
their efforts
to situate women
(including
pregnant
women)
and
fetuses
in
ethical
frameworks,
paying
attention
always
to women's
location in a matrix of
power. They
are
fully
aware of
how
pregnancy,
childbirth,
and motherhood
enforce
women's
powerlessness
(Burgess-Jackson,
personal
communication).
Their
voices
are essential,
especially
now, when androcentric ethics and anti-woman
policymaking
are all too
pervasive.
When I
critique
their
work, then,
I
do
so in a
constructive
spirit,
in
pursuit
of our common
goal:
to
develop strong,
defensible,
culturally
sensitive
theoretical foundations
for
designing
better
social
policies
affecting
women.
This
essay
offersa
feminist
anthropologist's
eading
of the notion
of
fetal-
social
relationality
as
it is
unfolding
in
selected works
by
Caroline Whitbeck
(1984),
Susan Sherwin
(1992),
Mary
Anne Warren
(1989),
and others.
I will
contrasttheir
interpretations
with some of those foundin the
anthropological
literatureon
person
and
self
(Battaglia
1995a; Carrithers,Collins,
and Luke
1985;
Strather
1992a, 1992b),
to
argue
that the renditions of
relationality
and fetal
personhood promoted by
these
philosophers
are
problematic
on
severalcounts.
First,
and in
spite
of the authors'
attempts
o shed androcentric
Western
biases,
their
relationality
remains
fundamentally,paradoxically,
nd
uncritically
rooted in the Western ndividualismand Cartesiandualism
they
assail.
Second,
their discussionsof the moral
significance
of birth
(Warren
1989)
are
being outpaced
by
social and
technological developments,
and lack
the universal
applicabilityespoused
by
some.
Third,
the
perspective
as cur-
rently
unfolding
could be more
reflexive,
acknowledging
he social and histor-
ical
context that
gives
us
the
categories
we use to
think
about
social-,
parental-,
and maternal-fetal
relationships,
and about the social construction
of
relationality
more
generally.
will
conclude
by
arguing
hat
personhood
hould
be seen as
a
negotiated, dynamic concept currentlybeing
contested
through
many overlappingpublic
discourses
concerning
fetuses.
Feminist
analyses
of
fetal
personhood,
I will
argue,
shouldbe
sociologically
informed,
self-critical,
and
aggressive
about
recuperating
eminist
renderings
of fetuses. This
argu-
ment is
consistent
with
Porter's
(1994)
recent
plea
for a
reflexive,
socially
conscientious moral
pragmatics
f
abortion.
49
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sus argumentos están ensuperioridad moral de conceptosrelacionales sobre individualisticos
críticas
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Hypatia
INDIVIDUALISM:
HE
ROOT OF ALL EVIL?
Abortion
challenges
feminists to come to termswith the
contradictions
n
their
own
thought,
notably
the
contradiction
between the commitment
to
community
and
nurtureand the commitment to individual
right.
(ElizabethFox-Genovese,
FeminismWithout llusions:
A
Critique
f
Individualism)
Feministphilosopherswho address he moralstatusof the fetus do so at least
partly
because
they
care about women and are
disturbedand
angered
by
the
erasureof
pregnant
women from an
array
of
public
discourses
including
those
concering
abortion,
poverty,
infant
mortality,
and substance
abuse).
They
watch
uneasily
as the American
public
is
distracted,
enthralled, incited,
and
sometimes
literally
crazed
by proliferating images
of
fetuses,
increasingly
depicted
as
free-floating,
disembodied little babies at
the
mercy
of their
uncaring
or
vindictive mothers. Feminist
philosophers
rightly
want
to
bring
womenback,literally into the picture, o point out once more that afetus
inhabits a
woman's
body
and is
wholly
dependent
on
her
unique
contribution
to its maintenance
(Sherwin 1992, 106).
The
philosophers
I select for attention
here,
however,
are
working
within
the constraintsof
a
continuum
established
ong ago
in the
literature.
One
end
is marked
by
those
who
posit
that fetuseshave
no value
whatsoever,
while
the
other end
is
marked
by
those
who
insist that
fetuses
are full
persons
from the
earliest
stages
of
gestation.2
The
fetuses
have no
value
end of the
spectrum
is
commonly
identifiedwith
writings
n the
early
1970s
by
Michael
Tooley
and
Mary
Anne
Warren,
who were accused of
supporting
nfanticide for
pointing
out that
newborns
possessed
ew
attributes hat
late-gestation
fetuses
did not.
The
other end of the continuum
is
exemplified,
of
course,
by
some
theologians
and
others
in
the
pro-life
movement,
whose membersbelieve fetuses
to be full
human
beings
from
the moment
of
conception
(Noonan
1979).
The feminist
philosophers
I refer to
seek to
position
themselves
along
this
continuum,
to
devise
a view
of
fetal
personhood
which would
permit
elective abortion
throughout
he
gestational
cycle
while
condemning
infanticide.3Warrenand
others
writing
n
the
same vein force
a
wedge
into this narrowniche
by
arguing
that
biological
birth marks a
morally significant
division between
persons
and
nonpersons.
Although
Warren concedes that most
contemporary
philosophers
believe
that birth cannot
make a
difference
to
moral
rights,
she
argues
that
contrasting biological
and
social
relationships
make
even
relatively
late
abortion
morally
different from
infanticide
(Warren
1989,
46;
emphasis
added).
The
philosophical
argument
distinguishing
nfanticide from
abortion,
and
prebirth
rom
postbirth
status,
is rooted in discussions
of individualistic
versus
50
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filósofasfeministasquierentraer amujeres alpanorama
peroterminanenmarcadasen marcostradicionales1. fetos notienen ningúnvalor2. personas
completas
Warren,límite denacimientomarca unadivisiónmoral entrepersona-nopersona
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Lynn
M.
Morgan
relational
models
of
personhood.
Moral
philosophy
and
ethics,
feminists
note,
are traditionallyderived from male models in which rational,self-interested
actors
arriveat
universalmoral
principles
after
indulging
n
abstract
hought.
Influenced
by
Carol
Gilligan's
(1982)
work on the
gendered
dimensions
of
moral
development,
several
theorists
argue
hat
individualist
deologies
create
a climate in
which social
relationships
are
denigrated
and devalued.
Whitbeck
(1984),
for
example,
argues
hat
individualismand
patriarchy
re
coterminous,
and
that in both social
relations are
inherently
oppositional, dyadic,
and
antagonistic.
Fox-Genovese
argues
hat
pervasive,historically
rooted individ-
ualistic ideologieshave left a perniciouslegacy: Individualism ctuallyper-
verts the
idea of the
socially
obligated
and
personally
responsible
reedom
hat
constitutes the
only
freedom
worthy
of
the name or
indeed
historically
possible
(1991, 7).
These
authors
(along
with
many
others)
argue
that as
feminists we
must resist
individualistic
deologies
to construct a
viable
philo-
sophical
and
political
alternative.
PRIVILEGING
ELATIONALITY
Relationality
is the
preferred
eminist
antidote to
individualism,
as
Sherwin
asserts: The
general
consensus
of female
theorists
is
that
[moral]
theories
should
involve models of
human interaction
that
parallel
he
rich
complexity
of actual
human
relationships
and should
recognize
the moral
significance
of
the
actual ties
that bind
people
in
their
various
relationships
Sherwin
1992,
49).
Relationality
is
presented
as
an
ideologically
undervalued
but
experien-
tially
accurate dimension
of
social interaction. It is
the basis for
Whitbeck's
proposed
feminist
ontology,
n which
a
self-others istinction
replaces
he
dyadic
self-other
distinction,
because
relationships,past
and
present,
real-
ized
and
sought,
are
constitutive of the
self,
and so the actions
of a
person
reflect
the more-
or
less-successful
ttempt
to
respond
o the
whole
configura-
tion of
relationships
Whitbeck
1984, 76).
The
approach
of
these
authors,
as
Kroeger-Mappes
oints
out
(1994, 123),
is to
valorize
elationality,
o offer
it as the
superior
alternative
to
individualism.
Discussionsof
individualismversus
relationalism ind
expression
n feminist
discussionsof
the fetus
in
the
following ways.
In the continuum
mentioned
above,
the
pro-life
position
holds
that fetuses
are full
persons
rom
conception
because
they
possess
intrinsic
properties.
This,
Sherwin
(1992)
argues,
s an
example
of
the
unfortunate
results
of
individualistic
thinking.
Sherwin
says
that
individualism
provides
the
ideological justification
for
presuming
that
persons including
fetal
persons)
must be
wholly,
corporeally
and
ontologi-
cally
constituted,
or else
wholly insignificant.
The
argument
proceeds:
if
persons
are
conceived not
as
self-maximizing
automatonsbut
as
relationally
constituted
and
socially
embedded
beings,
then
the
maternal-fetal
nexus
need
not
be
modeled in termsof
either-or etal
personhood
or
inevitable mater-
51
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Distinción filosófica entre aborto einfanticidio está en la discusión entreindividualismo vs modelo relacional depersona
Esta vía propone que comofeministas debemos resistirnosa ideologías individualisticaspara construir una viaalternativa
antídotoseríarelacionalidad
complejaconfiguración derelacionesque seformalizaen el "yo"
individualismo encarnadoen visión delfeto comovidacompleta yautocontenida
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Hypatia
nal-fetal
conflict.4
In
relational
terms,
Sherwin and
others
argue,
fetuses
necessarily move through pregnant women. A fetus is a unique sort of
human
entity,
then,
for it cannot form
relationships
reely
with
others,
and
others cannot
readily
form
relationships
with
it. A fetus
has
a
primary
and
particularly
ntimate
sort
of
'relationship'
with the woman
in
whose womb
it
develops;
connections
with
any
other
persons
are
necessarily
ndirectand must
be
mediated
through
the
pregnant
woman
(Sherwin
1992,
110).
Fetuses,
therefore,
cannot
be
granted
ull
personhood,
because
they
exist
as
compound,
dependent
ontological
entities rather
than as
capable
of
relationships.
Relationalitythus becomes the philosophicaland moralbasis forgranting(or
not
granting)
personhood
and social value to fetuses
and
infants.
It is worth
considering
in
greater
detail
precisely
what Sherwin
means
by
relationality.
Where
does she locate
relationality
(and
where
does she situate
herself)?
This
is
by
no
means an
easy question
to
answer,
because the
philo-
sophical
basis
for
relationality
is located
in
a
particularly
horny
thicket,
and
many
philosophers
are
inconsistent
and
contradictory
on this
point.
Sherwin,
for
example,
seems to vacillate between
biological
and
psychological
bases
for
relationality.
She
puts
the
biological argument
first: Fetuseshave a
unique
physical
status-within
and
dependent
on
particular
women. That
gives
them
also a
unique
social status.Howevermuch
some
might
prefer
t
to
be
otherwise,
no
one
other than the
pregnant
woman in
question
can
do
anything
to
support
or harm
a
fetus
without
doing
something
to the woman who
nurtures
it.
Because
of
this
inexorable
iological
eality,
the
responsibility
and
privilege
of
determining
a fetus's
specific
social status
and value must rest with
the woman
carrying
t
(1992,
110;
emphasis
added).
Biological
explanations
make sense
because
North American cultural
deologies
coax us to look for social
meaning
(such
as
explanations
for
crime
or
poverty
or
homosexuality)
in
biological
phenomena.
Yet it would be
exceedingly
problematic
to
locate
relationality
solely
n
biology,
as Sherwin
is
well aware.
The
question
of
agency
becomes critical
here. There
is
a
tension
in
these
writings
about where
to locate
relationality,
about
how to
imagine
an abstrac-
tion
that
cannot,
by
definition,
reside
within a
single
individual.
Relationality
is an
intangiblebond,
a
glue
that links individuals o one
another
(Strather
1992b, 125).
Yet some
of these writers eem to
link
relationality
o
individual
cognitive
or
corporeal
attributes.
Sometimes
they
locate it
in
the
fetus/infant,
which,
it
is
argued,
annot
participate
n
or form
relationships
until
it
possesses
some sine
qua
non
of
personhood.
This is a time-honored
pro-choice
feminist
strategy:
Those who defend
a
woman's
moral
right
to abort
argue
hat fetuses
lack
one or more
morally
relevant
characteristicsand hence
fall short of
full
moral
personhood,
rightholder
status,
and
membership
n the moral
commu-
nity-as
a result
of which women are
permitted
to abort
(Burgess-Jackson
1994,
142).
Sherwin uses
this
strategy
when,
citing
Petchesky
(1985, 341),
she
modifies her
biological explanation
by arguing
that
personality
( conscious-
52
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en términos relacionales, losfetos se mueven a través de lamujer embarazada
fetosexistencomocombinación
el problemade estarelacionalidad es la
oscilaciónentre lobiológico y lopsicológico
la cuestiónde laagencia sevuelve crítica
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8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
8/25
Lynn
M.
Morgan
ness and
sociability,
n
Petchesky's
erms)
is also a
necessarycomponent
of
personhood (Sherwin 1992, 109). Whitbeck notes (albeit parenthetically):
(Newborns
cannot have
any responsibilities,
and for that reason
may
be
regarded
s
immanent
[sic]
people)
(1984, 80).5
Relationality,
n
other
words,
must be
reciprocal,
but
because
fetuses are ineffective relational
agents,
a
relationship
s
impossible.
On other
occasions,
these same theorists
place
the onus for
relationality
on
the
pregnant
woman.
Petchesky,
or
example,
is
willing
to attributerelational-
ity
at least
partly
o a
pregnant
woman'sawareness
f it:
'Relationship'
means,
first,that there is
interdependence;
nd second, that there is a consciousness f
this,
even
if that
consciousness is
one-sided
[i.e.,
from
pregnant
woman to
fetus]
for a time
(1985, 346).
And
later,
What is irreducibleand
indispens-
able in this
humanization
process
(the
formationof the
'person')
s
the
subjec-
tivityof
the
pregnant
woman,
her consciousness
of
existing
in a
relationship
with
the
fetus
(1985, 347).
Gilligan puts
it
slightly differently,
mphasizing
mater-
nal-fetal
impartibility
rather than the
capacity
of one or another
party
to
develop relationships:
The connection between
the
fetus
and the
pregnant
woman becomes the focus ofattention and the
question
becomes whether it is
responsible
or
irresponsible, aring
or
careless,
o extend or to end this connec-
tion. In this
construction,
the abortion
dilemma
arises
because there is no
way
not to
act,
and no
way
of
acting
that
does
not
alter the connection
between
self
and others
(Gilligan
1987, 25).
There is
a third
approach,
which
would
locate
relationality
neither in the
pregnant
woman nor the fetus
(that
culturallyprivilegeddyad),
but
in a
larger
social network.
Warren,
for
example,
while
citing
fetal/infant
sentience as
one
plausible prerequisite
o
personhood,
also
argues,
It is
doubtful that a
child reared in
total isolation from human or other
sentient
(or
apparently
sentient)
beings
could
develop
the
capacities
for
self-awarenessand social
interaction that are
essential to
personhood
1989, 62).
Social
relationships
elaborated after
birth,
in
other
words,
complete
the achievement of full
personhood
in
Warren's erms.
Whitbeck,
like
Warren,
allows
agency
to be
diffused
through
a network of
already
iving persons
who
constitute,
and
are
constituted
by,
others in a
historically changing
social
world. Her
feminist
ontology
is characterized
by
the
core
practice
... of
the
(mutual)
realization
of
people
(Whitbeck
1984, 65).
This
third
point,
however,
reveals
an under-
lying
contradiction
that Whitbeck and
others
may
be loathe
to articulate.
For
understandable
practical political
reasons,
they
would
prefer
to situate
relationality
either in
intrinsic
properties
of the
fetus
or
pregnancy,
or
in the
pregnant
woman
herself,
or both.
They
are
reluctant to allow
relationality
to
leakout into a
pregnant
woman'ssocial
world
(e.g.,
father,
parents,
riends,
governmentagencies)
because
shared
relationalitymight provide
a
justifica-
tion for
undercutting
her
sovereign
control over the
fate of her
pregnancy.
Sherwin,
for
example, argues
that choices are
never
made outside a
social
53
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Relacionalidad debe ser recíproca pero ahí se meten en el problema de laagencia...ESTO SE RESUELVE CON HARAWAY CON LATOUR
agenciaen redsocialescapando de diada
esimportantepensar enla preguntade laagencia
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8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
9/25
Hypatia
context,
yet
she also
argues
that
pregnant
women should retain exclusive
control over reproductivedecisions (1992, 102). So even though a woman's
life circumstances
and
the
pregnancy
tself)
are embeddedwithin and deter-
mined
by
a
larger
social
context,
Sherwin's
analysis
solates
the
woman from
that
context in
order
to
justify
granting
her
control
over
reproductive
deci-
sions. This creates a series of
problems,
especially
with
respect
to
underprivi-
leged
women. As Daniels
points
out:
The
right
to
self-sovereignty
also means
the
right
to be
a
free
decision-maker n one'sprivatelife, to have a realmin which
one can be
self-determining.
Yet a retreat into
privacy,espe-
cially
for
poor
women,
can
never securethe
power
of self-deter-
mination. The
power
to
be a free
decision-maker
arisesnot in
isolation,
but in
social onnectiono a whole web of
relationships
that can
empower
women in the
context of
poverty
and domi-
nation.
Self-sovereignty
hus is
indivisible
from
social
empow-
erment.
(Daniels 1993, 134;
see also Porter
1994, 78)
If our
analyses
isolate women from
society,
even
for the sole
purpose
of
allowing
her to control
reproductive
decisions,
we will
have
to
accept any
unsavory onsequences.
Such
analysesprivatize
decision
making,
and could be
interpreted
as
absolving society
of
responsibility
to
foster social
climates
conducive to
bearing
(or not)
and
raising
children. This is but one
example
of
the
paradoxes
and contradictionsthat
invariablyemerge
when
we
argue-as
we must-for both
sociality
and individualism.
An alternative
approach
o
the
problem
of
locating agency
(i.e.,
the locus
of action
and
responsibility)
questions
the
premise
that
it
can be located
at
all
through
a
process
of
philosophical inquiry.
Monica
Casper
(1994),
a
sociologist analyzing
deas about
the volition attributed o
fetuses,
argues
hat
agency
is not an
alreadyexisting
fact
(ontological
or
otherwise)
to be discov-
ered
or revealed but is rather
a
social
project.
There are
many
sites,
she
says,
where
agency
is
discursively
and
concretely configured
and enacted.
Casper
notes that in the case of fetal surgery, gency slipsaround, lidingfromfetuses,
for
example,
to
pregnant
women,
to
medical
practitioners
and
others,
depend-
ing
on
where
the actors
fit into the
power
matrix.
A
feminist
program
hat
explicitly
rejects
the
possibility
of fetal
agency
has to
be
understood as
a
response
to
competing
discoursesthat
grant
active
agency
to fetuses.6
This
political
context
undoubtedly
affects feminist
philosophizing
(and
anthropologizing).
Acknowledging
the
power
relations inherent
in
assigning
agency might
enable us to be more
explicit
about
why
we
might
be
compelled,
right
now,
to
emphasize
relationality
and maternal
agency
over individualism
and fetal
agency.
54
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según la autora hay una contradicción entrelas formas de relacionalidad contextuales y eldeterminismo biológico para asegurar lasdecisiones biológicas
Problemas respecto amujeres de bajos privilegios
poder deautodeterminación encondiciones depobreza no sonseguras,autodeterminación noes una cosa aislada,conexión social
problemade aislar amujeres desociedad
privatización de lasdecisiones
el asunto sepuede pensarmás bien alcuestionarsesi agenciapuede serlocalizada através de lafilosofía
Casper:feto no esontológico,es unproyectosocial,agencia seactúa, seconcretadiscursivamente
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8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
10/25
Lynn
M.
Morgan
CULTURE-BOUND
EMINISTELATIONALITY
Their effortsat culturaldestabilization
notwithstanding,
Sherwin,
Warren,
and Whitbeck are
steeped
in
the same Western
individualism
they
seek
to
undercut;
so
steeped,
in
fact,
that
they
may
not
recognize
the culture-bound
tenor of their
arguments.
The
Western
ethnobiological
view
of
personhood
holds
that
relationality
is
superimposedupon
a
developing, naturally
given
mind-body.
The
Western view also holds that
persons,
once formed
(or
embodied ),
are
corporeally
immutable
and
fixed,
rather than
susceptible
to continuing social influences (Conklin and Morgan n.d.; Strathern
1992a;
Turner
1994).
Persons,
once
established,
retain this
fundamentally
unchangeable
essence. The critical
analytic problem,
therefore,
is
not
to
account
for
the
coming
into
being
of
bodies,
which are
natural,
but
the
coming
into
being
of
persons,
which
are,
presumably,uniquely
social
and
historical.
Relationality
is
considered
by
these authors as
integral
to
person-
hood,
but
not
to
the
body
itself. I will
untangle
the
problematics
of each of
these issues n turn.
First,
Western ndividualism
equires
asa
precursor
o human
personhood
an
already existing
material
corporeality;
biological
existence
must
always pre-
cede
sociality.
In
Warren's
words,
The infant at birth
enters the human social
world,
where,
if
it
lives,
it becomes
involved in social
relationships
with
others,
of kinds
that
can
only
be
dimly
foreshadowed before birth
(1989, 56).
Corporeal integrity
and
skin-encapsulation
thus
prefigure
the
person;
the
individual
body
is viewed as a
biopsychological
blank slate
upon
which
people
later write. In Mackenzie's
words,
The more
physically complex
and
devel-
oped
the
being
is,
the more value we
attribute
o
its
potential
for
personhood
(1992, 145).
This
biological-social
developmental
dualism extends to
the
mind,
too,
which
comes to
possess
its
morally meaningful
qualities (e.g.,
sentience,
consciousness,
responsibility) hrough
physioneurological
rocesses
considered
argely
asocial and
unstoppable.
Sherwin
argues
in
this vein that
fetal
relationality
is
impossible during
pregnancy,
becausethe
fetus's
ability
to form
tsown
relationships
s
forestalled
by
the
presence
of the
pregnant
woman's
body.
She
implies
that
relationships,
in
order to be
morally
valid,
should
be held
by
individuals
(what
we
might
think of as
in-dividu-ables ).
ikewiseWhitbeck
asserts hat the
relations f
the self to others
are relations
among analogous
beings
1984, 76).
By
this she
means
that
persons
are created
through mutually
constitutive,
reciprocal,
communicative
processes
rather than
through
domination
or
annihilation
(1984, 76),
but I
interpreted
he
phrase analogous
beings
also
to mean that
these
beings
should be
biologically independent
of
each other.
Whitbeck's
self-others
cheme does not
problematize
he
autonomous
Western
person
or
self.
A
wholly
realized
relationality
hinges,
in
the views of Sherwin
and
Whitbeck,
on
the notion
of
corporealautonomy.
55
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rekacionalidad es sobre personas y no sobre cuerpos que serían fijos
cuerpoindividuales basepara
relacionesposteriores
implícitamente que
relaciones,para sermoralmenteválidasdeben serentreindividuos.No seproblematiza la personaoccidentalautónoma
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8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
11/25
Hypatia
An
alternative
view
ofpersonhood might interpret
bodies not as blank slates
but as the literal instantiationof socialrelations.These more radicalvisions of
the relational
body-person
can
best
be illustrated
by examples
from societies
where the
body
is
thought
to
be more
than a materialsubstrate
upon
which
meaning
is encoded
(see
Butler
1990, 129),
specifically
and
predictably),
with
examples
from non-Western
societies.7In the
Brazilian
Amazon,
for
example,
indigenous
peoples commonly emphasize
he father's
contribution
to
forming
a child. The Shavante
say
that the father
literally
orms
he
fetus from semen.
Frequent
ntercourse,
specially
during
the fifth
month,
is
required
o
effect
a
pregnancy.
As one Shavante
explained
the
process
. . . while
ticking
the
months
off with his
fingers: Copulate.
Copulate,
copulate, copulate,
copulate
a lot.
Pregnant.Copulate, copulate,
copulate.
Born'
(Maybury-Lewis
967,
63,
quoted
in
Scheper-Hughes
and Lock
1987,
19).
Beth
Ann Conklin
points
out that
among
the
Wari'
of the western
Amazon,
the father's
ommitment
to
creating
a
child's
body/person hrough repeated
coitus means
that
pregnancy
can
never
be a
mistake ;
very
pregnancy
s instead the
result of
deliberate,
concerted social
initiative
(Conklin
and
Morgan
n.d.;
Conklin
1995).
Many
non-Westernvariantsof relational
personhood
stressthe
permeability
of bod-
ies
in
nature-culture
ransformations;
or
example,
The
Suya
cosmology
does
not mark
two
distinct
poles
of
nature and
culture
standing
in
permanent
opposition.
Rather there are
degrees
of naturalnessand
degrees
of socialness.
Social
life is thus
a constant socialization
or naturalization
of human
beings,
bodies,
animals,
and
space
(Seeger
1981,
119).
The
person --even
before
birth
and after death-is
never
perceived
as a natural
r asocial
entity.
The
physical
substance
of
the
body-flesh,
blood,
and
bones,
as
well as
personal-
ity-is
literally
constructed-and
continually
reconstructed-by
and under
the watchful
care
of others
in
a
social world.The
body
and the
person
are thus
coterminous,
and the
body/person
s
valued
socially
precisely
because
t is
the
product
of
specific
social
interactions.
One
other
difference
between non-Wester
relationality
and
Western
em-
inist
relationality
concerns
the
role
of
physiological
nurturance
n
creating
persons.
By physiological
nurturance
am
referring
o
more than
the ethic
of
caring
for children
and others
(so
often stressed
n the
West);
people
in
many
non-Wester societies
insist
that the
exchange
of
food and
body
substances
actually
create
kinship
and
personhood
Meigs
1984).
They
often tie
gradients
of
personhood
to the
exchange
of
body
substances
(such
as
blood, sweat,
or
breast
milk),
rather
than
to
the
ability
of newboms
to
interact,
respond,
or
form social bonds
as
in
Western
societies. Yet Whitbeck
(1984,
65),
for
one,
shies
away
rom
the term
nurturing
ecause t
connotes feminine
selflessness.
The
Reagan-era
social
context
of her
remarks
needs to be
kept
in
mind,
yet
one wonders
about
denying
the
importance
of nurturance
n
creating
children
just
because
the
concept
has
historically
been
used
to
oppress
women.
A
child
advocacy
slogan
currently
in
vogue
says,
It takes
a whole
village
to raise
a
56
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personacomoinstanciade
relacionessocialesvisionesmásradiacales-Butler-donde elcuerpo esmás queunsubstratomaterial.
el embarazono puede ser
un error,procedimientos del padrecontinuos, esel resultadode unainciativadeliberada yconcertada
sociedaddonde noexiste cuerpo-natural puesse construyey re construye
rol decrianzapsicológicaesdemasiadooccidental
crianzacomoaltruismo-feminidad
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8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
12/25
Lynn
M.
Morgan
child.
The cross-cultural
omparison
remindsus that
nurturing
s not
every-
where or automaticallylinked to the self-sacrificingmother (see Scheper-
Hughes
1992),
but can rather
be conceived as
a
quality
distributed
hroughout
communities
of men and
women,
which hold
a
collective
responsibility
or
bringing
other
people
into
being.
Marilyn
Strather
notes
that
in Melanesia
incipient persons
contain
other
persons,
have
other
persons
implied
in
[their]
constitution
(1992b,
152).
Reproduction
n
Melanesia, then,
as in
many
non-Western
societies,
is not a
process
of
linking
etuses
and/or
infants with other
persons-of superimposing
sociality
over a
biological
substrate-but
of
differentiating
he
new
person
from
the
others
(including supernatural
beings
and
animal
persons,
as well as
parents
and other
kin)
who contributed
to
the creation
of this nascent
being.
Whereas
Sherwin
might
locate the
essence
of
personhood
in
a
fetus/infant's
corporeality
or in its
ability
to communicate and
respond
(1992, 111),
an
alternative
perspective might
view
the
fetus/infant
as
a
motley
amalgam
of
many
social influences which enable
its
constitution. These
might
include
social events (such as the failing contraceptionor acquisitionof a better-pay-
ing job),
personality
traits inherited from
important persons
(such
as
the
whistling
grandmother
or
gardening
dad),
and substances
(such
as
prenatal
vitamins,
or
peanut
butter
on
seven-grain
bread).
In
other
words,
an
alterna-
tive view of
personhood
could
perceive body
substance
and
not
just
the
cognitive
self)
as
socially
constituted.
Relationships
could then be
implied
and
highlighted
at
every stage
of
potential,
incipient,
and
emergent personhood,
from the social context
of
courtship
and
sexuality through
conception
and
early gestationthroughbirth, socialization,education,and initiation through
to the end of the life
cycle.
The claim that
body/persons
are
created
through
physiological
nurturance
has
implications
for how
we
might
reframe
pregnancy
termination and
fetal
death.
A
woman
(or
her
partner[s],
or
relevant others in her
social
world)
might
elect
not
to sustain
or
nurture he fetal or
infant
body.
This would
not
constitute
active
killing
(the
terms in which
induced abortion is so
often
described),
but the
failure
to
complete
the
social
process
of
producing
body/persons.The ethnographic iteraturecontains numerous
descriptions
of
sickly
or
stillborn
infants
whose dis-ease is attributed to
failures
of
social
nurturance in
utero
(Conklin
and
Morgan
n.d.;
Scheper-Hughes
1992).
I
should
emphasize,
however,
that
the
decision to discontinue an
emergent
person
n
non-Westernsocieties
is
rarely
a freechoice
undertaken
by
women
acting
in
their own
individualisticbest
interests,
as
Westernfeminists
might
imagine
it.
Such a
decision is more
likely
to
be the cumulative
result of
a
number
of
unstable or
unpredictable
ocial
contingencies
(such
as the
illness,
absence,
or death
of
relevant
parties,
or
the
inability
of
the social
group
to
generate
the kin
commitmentsneeded to
nurture
a
future
child).
As
such,
the
57
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no se puede universalizar crianzaoccidental
una visiónalternativaentoncespuede serel cuerposubstanciacomosocialmenteconstituido
cuerpo/ persona através decrianzatienemuchasimplicaciones sobremarco delembarazo
resultadode
contingenciassociales
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8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
13/25
Hypatia
discontinuation
or termination of
a
prospective
etal or infant
body/person
s
an eminently social anddynamicprocess.
Cross-cultural ariations
n
ideologies
of
personhood
are
important
o this
argument
not
(just)
because I write as an
anthropologist,
but because
my
anthropological
sensibilities are unsettled
by
the claims of
some
feminist
philosophers
who
plant flags
on
pancultural
erritory.
Whitbeck,
for
example,
argues
hat her
responsibilities
pproach
o ethics has
a
greater
potential
for
cross-cultural
applicability
than does the
rights
approach
1984,
80).
This
may
be
true
in
the limited
sense,
but Whitbeck does
not
acknowledge
the
extent to
which the
responsibilities
pproach
erives rom a
historically
and
culturally pecific
rather han
a
universalnotion of
personhood.
One wonders
whether
Whitbeck
privatizes
moral
agency (qua personhood)by
locating
it
in
individuals
i.e.,
in discrete
persons/bodies)
rather than in social
groups,
hus
overlooking
the connections
among
rather
than
between)
people
that under-
lie
social
organization
n
many
societies. Can a
philosophy
that
normalizesa
particular
ultural
ormever account for
negotiated
enactments
of
personhood
in relation to changing configurationsof poweracrossthe globe?How could
such a
philosophy
account for
relationshipsamong
groups
such
as Arabs and
Jews),
whose
identities are
continually reconfigured
by
politics?
How can we
think about
societies where moral
agency
extends
beyond
the human
realm,
for
example,
when animals or ancestors are considered
moral
agents?
We
should
be
skeptical
of
any
approach
hat
essentializes ndividual
bodies/persons
in
uniquely
Western
ways.
THE MORALAMBIGUITY
OF BIRTH
Being
awareof the historical
[and
cultural]
articularity
f
moral
concepts
allows us
to
adopt
a
healthy
caution
about
absolutist
positions
and to
question
ongoing
moraldebate.
(ElisabethPorter,
Abortion
Ethics:
Rights
and
Responsibilities )
One avenue
of feminist
response
to abortion
politics
has been to reassert
what
Virginia
Held
(1987,
122)
and
Mary
Anne Warren
(1989)
call the
moral
ignificance
of
birth.
Birth
is
morally significant
because it marks
the end of
one
relationship
and
the
beginnings
of
others ....
Although
the
infant
is not
instantly
transformed
nto a
person
at the moment
of
birth,
it does
become
a
biologically
separate
human
being.
As
such,
it
can
be known and cared
for
as
a
particular
ndividual.
(Warren
1989, 62;
my emphasis)
58
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descontinuación de fetocuerpo/persona es unproceso socialvariaciones culturales!!
noción deresponsabilidad vienede unanociónuniversalde persona
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8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique
14/25
Lynn
M.
Morgan
Likewise,
Sherwin
argues
that fetuses
differ
from
newborns,
who
immedi-
ately begin to develop into persons by virtue of their place as subjects in
human
relationships
(1992, 111).
The
dividing
line between full
persons
and
non-persons
should be
drawn,
say
Held,
Warren,
and
Sherwin,
at
biological
birth.
This
argument
s
problematic
on
at
least three counts.
First,
as discussed
above,
it
relies on
a
biological
reductionism
by using
physical autonomy
(i.e.,
separateness)
as the
most
important
qualification
for
personhood.
Second,
it
romanticizesa
disappearing
poch
in which
biological
birthdid
mark he
social
beginning
of
personhood,
and
ignores
an
emerging discontinuity
between
social and
biological
birth in North American
society.
And
third,
it
does
not
allow for
gradations
n
value
which
make ate
gestation
fetusesmore
significant
than
early gestation
fetuses.
There was a time not
long ago
in the United States when
biological
birth
did mark the social
(as
well as
legal) beginnings
of
personhood.
Parents-to-
be
typically
had to wait until
biological
birth to know the
baby
and
bestow its selected
gender-specific
name.
Biological
birth
was
ritualized-
phone
calls
in
the wee
hours,
cigars,
gifts,
announcements,
photographs-
in
recognition
that the occasion
marked the
beginnings
of social
identity
and
personhood.
Whereas
many
non-Western societies have
traditionally
distinguished
between
biological
and
social birth
(see
Morgan
1989),
in
the
United States
the two were
historically
conflated.8 The social
reality
has
since
changed.
Social and
biological
birth have
become
uncoupled
in
the United States
over the last twodecades.As a resultofreproductive maging echnologies,the
commodificationof
babies,
and other social
changes,
the
attributionof
person-
hood
(what
I
call
social
birth )
can now
precede biological
birth. The result
is a
new,
unprecedentedcategory
of fetal
persons
(see
Duden
1993;
Petchesky
1987;
Rothman
1986).
These
late-gestation
fetuses are
gendered
and
named;
their
pictorialrepresentations ppeal
frombillboards
and
hang
(in
the form of
ultrasound
cans)
on walls and
refrigerators.
n
the media
they
are
increasingly
depicted
as
active,
technologically sophisticatedagents,
shown on
television
(in an AT&T ad) talking on the telephone (Taylorn.d.), or convincing
adults to
buy
a
particular
kind of car
(Taylor
1992).
It
is
my
contention
that
those who
set
off to
prove
the natural
mportance
of
birth
forgot
to
keep
an
eye
on
the weather.
Their rhetoric
of
birth
as the
moral
dividing
line between
persons
and
nonpersons
is
simply unconvincing
in an
era when
ever
greater
ocial
value is
being
attached to fetuses
(especially
wanted, viable,
third-trimester
fetuses).
Furthermore
(and
here
I
para-
phrase
Sawicki
1991,
86),
arguments
or the
moral
ignificance
of
birth are
doomed to
be
politically
ineffective
because
they
do not
resonate with the
experiences
of
women who
desire and
create fetal
personhood through
their
59
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según varias, la línea divisoria entre personascompletas y no-personas debería ser trazada en elnacimiento biológico. PERO ESTO ESPROBLEMÁTICO
i.reduccionismobiológico,autonomíacomo lomásimportante
para serpersonaii.lo biológicocomomarca queignoranuevastecnologíasiii.no haygradosentre fetosmásgrandes ymáspequeños
en eeuu elnacimientosocial y elbiológico se
separaron...tecnologías...
"fetalpersons"
momentoen el que sele estádando granvalor sociala los fetosTECNOLOGÍAS
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15/25
Hypatia
avid
consumption
of
infertility
treatments, amniocentesis,
ultrasound,
and
in-uterovideo services.
Fetal
personhoodpresentsundeniably
difficult
challenges
for
feminist
anal-
ysis,
but
ignoring
or
denying
the
phenomenon
will
not make it
disappear.
Rather than
stating categorically
that
fetuses,
after
all,
are
not
yet
persons
(Purdy
1990, 278),
we
need now
to
direct attention to the
morally
relevant
gradations
that
occur within
the
gestational
period (Noddings
1989;
Porter
1994).
Distinctions
between
early-
and
late-gestation
fetuses
are
critical
to
abortion
politics.
Yet
Sherwin dismisses he semantic
(and
thus
the
practical
andmoral)distinction between
embryo
nd fetus,
xplaining
that she will
use the
term
fetus
o
cover the entire
period
of
development
from
concep-
tion to the end of
pregnancy
(1992, 251).
This is
unfortunate,
because
Sherwin's
metonymic
reduction forces even the
sympathetic
reader
to
invoke
a
mental
image
that
lumps together
viable
late-gestation
fetuses
(which
can be
read as social
persons)
with
unformed
early-gestation
embryos
(see
C.
Condit
1990, 83).
Whereas
Sherwin talks about the fetus as an undifferentiated
or
mono-
lithic
entity,
other feminist social scientists are
analyzing
the social
prac-
tices that work to establish
(or
to
resist)
different
kinds,
qualities,
and
degrees
of
fetal
personhood (Casper
1994;
Morton
1994).
The fetus can
symbolize
and
encapsulate
a
number
of
timely
social issues
(Oaks n.d.).
Although
the abortion
debate
is
the most contentious
public
context
influencing
our
society's
views of fetuses
today,
it should be noted that
multiple
new
meanings, emerging
from
developments
in
law,
medicine,
religion,
and
popular
culture,
are
being generated
and affect
the
way
we
think about fetuses. These
overlapping
discoursesneed to be identified and
disentangled,
lest
they
all be
erroneously
construed
as
variations
on the
abortion debate.
The so-called
infertility
epidemic,
for
example,
has
gener-
ated
its own narratives
of
pregnancy
loss and attendant
meanings
of
fetuses
(Inhorn
1994;
Layne
1990, 1992;
Sandelowski
1993).
There
is
intense
negotiation
over
meanings
in fetal
surgery
units as fetuses become
objects
of
work
(Casper
1994),
and
in courtrooms as
lawyers
debate
the
legal
status of the unborn
(D.
Condit
1995;
Gallagher
1987).
As
the
contexts
for
fetal discourse
proliferate,
it will be
increasingly
clear that we cannot talk
about
the fetus but rather need to talk
about a
diversity
of
situations
and
perspectives
which
carry
with them
many
different
meanings.9
60
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tenemosque poneratención alos gradosque seestándando en el
períodogestacional
"el feto"estánombrando unacantidaddecuestionessociales
en cirugíasfetales, seconviertenen objetosde trabajo yobjeto dedebate en
lasCORTES
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16/25
Lynn
M.
Morgan
THE
USES
OF FETUS ALK
An
approach
o
selfhood
as an embodied and
historically
situated
practical
knowledge
...
prompts
a
larger
question
of
rhetoric,
namely,
what
use
a
particular
notion of self has for
someone
or for
some
collectivity.
(Debbora
Battaglia,
Problematizing
he
Self: A Thematic
Introduction )
If we
apply
Battaglia's insight
to the motivations of feminist theorists
thinkingaboutincipientpersonhood,we can better understandwhywe could
be reluctant to
engage
in
fetus
talk. We know
that
our discursive
practices
(including
our
silences)
have
social
consequences.
If
we talk
about
fetuses,
then,
or
write
about them in the
pages
of
our
journals,
we
come
dangerously
close
to
ceding territory
to
pro-life
activists
who benefit from the reifica-
tion
of
fetal
persons
(see
Pollitt
1992).
The threats to
reproductive rights
are real and must not be
underestimated,
but the
pro-choice
philosophical
discourse
I
have described here carries another set
of
disquieting
social
and
political implications.
Consider
the
problematicconsequences
of
positing
biological
birth as the
normative,natural,
and most sensiblemoral
dividing
ine between
persons
and
nonpersons.
First,
this assertion
collapses
a
potentially
useful distinction
between
biological
and social birth which
might help
make
sense
of contem-
porary
hifts in the
social
(and
moral)
significance
of
biological
birth and the
social construction of
early personhood
in
Europe
and the
United States.
Second,
emphasizingbiological
birth
ipso
facto divides women into
categories,
natural
mothers
being
those who
respect
the
moral
significance
of
birth,
unnatural mothers
implicitly
those who do not
(for
example,
those who
deposit
their
newborns in trashcansor abandon
them
in
hospital
nurseries).
Warren
allies herself
with
women
possessed
of
something
akin to a maternal
instinct
when she
says,
Most women
readily accept
the
responsibility
or
doing
whatever
they
can to
ensurethat their
(voluntarily
continued)
pregnan-
cies
are
successful,
and
that no
avoidableharm comes to the fetus
(1989, 58).
While it
may
be
unfair o take Warren's
omment out
of
context-she was
not,
after
all,
writing
about
fetal abuse
or
the
punitive
actions taken
against
pregnant
substance
abusers-her statement
is
unfortunately
and
unintention-
ally,
I
hope)
consistent with a
dichotomy emerging
n
the
popular
press
that
distinguishes
good
mothers romthe bad
mothers who
victimize
their
own
children.
But
we
live
in
treacherous
imes,
when we can
expect
our own words
to be used
against
us. Rather
than
interrogating
the
nefarious
dichotomy
between
good
and bad
mothers,
or
noting
the backlashor
the
privatized
moral
economy
embedded within
it,
Warren
uncritically accepts
a
stereotype
of
criminalmonster
motherswho
neglect,
abuse,
abandon,
or kill their
newborns
or
children
(Tsing
1990;
see also
Boling
1995).1?
The monster
mothers'
per-
61
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implicaciones de hablar o nohablar de fetos
partobiológicocomo lo másnatural y lomás positvoes doblefilo---terminaesencializan
do el instintomaternaltambién
Warrenterminaaceptandoacriticamente elestereotipo de lamadre-monstruo
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17/25
Hypatia
sonal
stories,
no
matter how
grim,
can
never be made to
justify
their actions.
Held argues,similarly,that the capacity for mothering emerges from the
natural acts.
Using
that
logic,
she denies on
biological
grounds
the
male
potential
for
adequateparenting:
Since
men,
then,
do not
give
birth,
and
do
not
experience
the
responsibility,
he
pain,
and momentousnessof
childbirth,
they
lack the
particular
motives to value
the child that
may spring
from this
capacity
and this
fact
(Held 1987,
125).
This
kind
of
rhetoric
implicitly
reinforces
he
assumption
hat all women who have babies are
good
moth-
ers.1
It
also
severely
imits
the
creative
possibilities
or
co-parenting,
commu-
nal
parenting,adoptive parenting,
or other formsof
raising
children
by
those
who are not
the
birth mothers.
The
emphasis
on
biological
birth
creates
a
third
problem.
It denies
legiti-
macy
to
a
growing
number
of
people (including pro-choice
women and
men)
who
may occasionally
attribute
personhood
to
late-gestation
fetuses. Their
experiences
and
logic
are sometimes
sensitively
portrayed
n the
ethnographic
literature
(Rapp
1987, 1990;
Rothman
1986;
Sandelowski
1993),
but would
not
fit
comfortably
nto the
philosophical
iteraturediscussed
here. If
biologi-
cal
birth marks he
beginnings
of
personhood,
s
there room within feminism
for those
who
deeply
mourn
early miscarriage,
or
those
who bestow
person-
hood
on
late-gestation
etuses?
Kathryn
Addelson,
citing
C.
Wright
Mills,
notes
that the
explanations
people
offer are themselves
in
need of
explanation
(Addelson 1987,
91).
If
we
assume that our
analytic assumptions
derive
from
particular
social and
intellectual
traditions,
then
we
have
a
responsibility
o formulate
responses
with a heightened awareness o the historical and culturalidiosyncraciesof
those
traditions,
and
to
make
our
reflexivityexplicit.
I
wish,
for
example,
that
Warrenor Sherwin
had
acknowledged
how
difficult
it is to discussabortionas
a
problem
linked
to
qualities
of the fetus ratherthan
to
the
social context
of
parenting
(see
Burgess-Jackson
994,
15).
I
wish
they
were more
attentive
to
the
changing
social
significance
of
biological
birth and the
proliferation
of
meanings
attaching
to fetuses.
I
wish
they
could
imagine
a
relationality
that
overridesrather
than
replicates
Cartesian
dualisms,
or a form of
relationality
that mightbe patternedcompletelydifferently n anothersocial,national, or
historical
context.
I wish
they
would be as candid about
their
political
moti-
vations as
Monica
Casper,
who
states,
As
a
pro-choice
feminist
from
a
nation
where abortion
is
one
of the most contentious
and divisive issues
n
the
public
arena,
where the
fetus has
emerged
as a
major
cultural con ...
at
the
hands
of antiabortion orces
granting
t
personhood,
and
where
abortion doctors are
now
being
murdered
by pro-life
error-
ists,
I am
quite
resistant
o
engaging
in
any
practice
that
grants
agency
to the
fetus.
(Casper
1994,
851)
62
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esencializar quita la posibilidad de pensar posibilidadescreativas de maternidad-paternidad
el últimoproblema es
entonces si
esta barreraexisteentonces pqla gente seencarniñacon losfetos?
esfundamental!!! tener encuentacontextos enlos queformulamosrespuestas
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18/25
Lynn
M.
Morgan
We need to
acknowledge
hat
we are not
revealing
truths bout
the
person-
hood of fetuses (or others), but ratherengaging in the process (historically
and
culturally
situated)
of
producing persons
ourselves,
through
our
actions,
reactions,
and
rhetoric
(including
our academic
rhetoric).
Our
actions and
writings
create a
vocabulary,
a
rhetoric,
a set
of
meanings
with
which
to
make sense
of
fetal
personhood
and
relationality.
Precisely
because the
political
stakes
are so
high,
those
of us who write
about
fetal
relationality
have
a
responsibility
to
be
reflexive
and
self-critical,
to think
about
the
kind
of
world we want to
create.
OF INSTRUMENTALERSONHOOD
ND MORAL
PRAGMATICS
Formalized otions of
personhood
are not to be
construedas
descriptive
of a
static,
preordained,
ocial
world;
hey
are
instrumentalitieswhich
people
actively
use
in
constructing
and
reconstructing
a
world which
adjusts
values and
goals
inheritedfromthe pastto the problemsandexigencieswhich
comprise
their social existence
in
the here and now.
(Michael
Jackson
and
Ivan
Karp,
Personhoodnd
Agency:
The
Experience f Self
and Other n
African
Societies)
Early
anthropological investigations
of
personhood
tended to
overdraw
discrepancies
between cultures.
Non-Western
cultures were sociocentric
compared
o
egocentric
Westerncultures
(Shweder
and
Bourne
1984).
The
ideal
types-approach
as
begun
to fall out of
favor,however,
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