Abortion
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Abstract
Abstract A deprivation of women’s reproductive rights has occurred by the right-wing turn in recent United States’ politics. Looking at the details of Roe v. Wade, (1973), and Dobbs (2022), the author notes the limited legal, but predominantly emotional, thinking in the Supreme Court’s opinions that led to the overturn. The contemporary legal coup is seen here as yet another age-old attempt to control the female body’s reproductive powers and capacities. Using an example, the author notes the unconscious male fear of female’s bodily self-governance that inhibits any empathy for “the other.” She also reflects on a widespread archaic unconscious horror – and thus hostility – toward the female qua female, akin to Kristeva’s description of “the abject,” which the author likens to the raw products of an aborted conception. Such graphic unconscious reactions seem to skew the Law, which here fails to uphold the logic of equal status among adult humans.