At 01:04 PM 8/17/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote: >Michael Keaney wrote: >>Does the wider community have a legitimate interest in the fate of the >>unborn child? Is it an adequate defence of a woman's ability to choose >>freely to insist upon a conception of her body as private property with >>which she may do as she pleases? If so, how do we deal with prostitution, >>pornography, euthanasia, self-mutilation, "irresponsible" behaviour of >>pregnant mothers (e.g. smoking, substance abuse)? Where do rights come from? >>How are they divined, or are they constructed, and in either case, who by? > >The USA has gone in a direction of punishing with imprisonement what you >call "'irresponsible' behaviors of pregnant mothers,'" and this policy >trend is likely to continue. 'Socialist' Romania (the surreally >'pronatalist' state) banned abortions, made contraceptives unavailable, and >imposed mandatory pregnancy tests upon the female population. 'Socialist' >China took an opposite tack and has enforced its one-child policy. Japan >imported Viagra but damned male conservatives have made the pill >unavailable. Steralization abuses, overuse of C-section, etc. have been >well publicized. In sexist societies, an 'interest in the fate of unborn >child' comes in the form of punishment, surveillance, and psychological & >behavioral control of women. Reproductive capacity of women has been made >a medium of dehumanization & subordination of women by men and the State, >often in the name of 'protection' of fetuses, of women themselves, of >moralisty, of society, and indeed in some cases tragically of 'socialism.' >And I am opposed to population control or political demography for this >reason. To rewrite Foucault, both bodies and souls are prisons of >womanhood. > >I add that such punishment, surveillance, and control of women has never >led to the well-being of children who are already born. Yoshie, while I agree with your position that excessive concern with the well-being of children is often a pretext for control of women by men - a point can be made that no control at all can lead to the same effect. For example, Heidi Hartmann (following Max Weber's concpet of family) argues that defining family matters as "private" in 17th century England and thus exempting them from public scrutiny deprived women of protection offered by kin groups, and essentially subjected women to arbitrary power of the male head of household - which Hartmann argues lead to the strengthening of patriarchy under capitalism. The main point is that both excessive 'socialization' and excessive 'privatization' of reproductive health can be detrimental to women. wojtek
