(Re)Producing Bodies: Biomedicalizing Abortion Through the Congressional Debate Over Fetal Pain

• In Event: 470 - Regular Session. Sociology of Reproduction: Reproductive Technologies

Abstract

The scientific and political debate over whether a fetus can experience pain highlights a vital and controversial boundary for governance—the boundary of human life. Showing how the fetal pain debate is a case of biomedicalization, this paper traces how reproductive bodies and subjectivities are assembled in a technoscientific society as captured on the Congressional Record. While those supporting and opposing the bill take different stances on abortion policy, each relies on biomedical knowledge and risk assessment to substantiate their claims. By using technoscientific evidence and risk measurement both political positions construct an ideal technoscientific identity that privileges the experience of some women over others. Overall, I argue the fetal pain debate is not merely a struggle to define when life begins, but is a biopolitical project aiming to reassemble and reassert control over a shifting and uncertain technoscientific population.

Author

• Ashlyn Jaeger, UC Davis