Fetal Futurity: Legislative Imaginings of Fetal Citizenship

• In Event: Reproductive Futurity

Abstract

This paper examines prenatal non-discrimination and fetal homicide laws as imaginative acts premised on what historian Barbara Duden calls the “not yet” (1993). I argue politicians imagine the fetus as a future Child while simultaneously imbuing the fetus with socio-natal qualities like “race”. Said reproductive futurity produces a white fetus that can be “killed” by violent “fathers” and black fetuses that can be “killed” by predatory abortion doctors or ashamed white “mothers”. Conducting an affective discourse analysis, I contend the white fetus becomes a melancholic subject and the non-white fetus becomes save-able subject through these legislative imaginings.

Presenter

• Jennifer Musial, Dickinson College