Feminist Philosophy Quarterly (Sep 2019)
Precarious Embodiment
Abstract
In this essay I endeavor to provide such an account, and describe at a pretheoretical level an embodied subjectivity at odds with its own state of embodiment, and on the other hand, to explore the limited agency induced by constraints that fall upon an embodied subject who is compelled to live a body which is free to engage the various possibilities of the world in every respect except one, within the context of an intercorporeal social reality. This description will provide a sound ontological foundation where the central place of embodiment in the abortion debate can be re-asserted and properly taken into account. What this description will reveal is the ontological drama of such “aversely pregnant subjectivities” at a time when ever more legislation is being passed that poses ever more restrictions on reproductive rights of women in the United States (Guttmacher Institute 2018). This investigation is all the more pertinent in light of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s recent announcement that he is retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court, which may well put the right to legal abortions in jeopardy (Davis 2018). My highest ambition, however, is to convey the significance of these restrictions to those who have never been and never can become pregnant, but who by and large determine the polices that play a substantial role in shaping such subjectivities.
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