The decision: Relations to oneself, authority and vulnerability in the field of selective abortion

Abstract

This article is about selective abortion. It concentrates on the existential, moral and social conditions that arise when pregnant women, using prenatal diagnosis (PND), are told that there is something seriously wrong with the foetuses that they are carrying. This is characterised as a micro state of emergency, where both normal cognitive categories and normative orders are dissolved. The analyses are anchored in the womens' own presentations and understandings of the processes and dilemmas related to the abortion decisions, and our most important empirical materials are interviews with women who have experienced them. Our main ambition is to show the relation between some important dimensions of the situation in which the abortion decision has to be made, and the special kind of authority on behalf of the women that presents itself. Of equal importance is the vulnerability of the pregnant women, resulting in a co-production of the women as both Sovereigns and Homo Sacer in the decision situation. We also analyse some of the experienced relations between the women and the foetuses, and how the women constitute themselves as moral subjects, with a particular emphasis on the motifs of sacrifice and self-sacrifice. It is a central argument in the article that we have to understand the specificity of the decision situation, without reducing it either to other phases (before or after) of the total processes of PND and selective abortion, or to general discourses of disability or normality. The specificity of the situation in which the abortion decision is made is a pivotal point in society's regulation (in a broad sense) of the field and in the constitution of the regime of selective abortion.

Postponed Withholding: Balanced Decision-Making at the Margins of Viability

“…A second trimester abortion places the responsibility of ending the life of the fetus on the woman. For some, it is not even an option, while for others it can be seen as a self-sacrifice on behalf of the mother, to protect both the unborn child and the family from suffering (Risoy and Sirnes 2015). Some parents choose to terminate the pregnancy, and others opt for palliative care after birth, even if the prognosis is better than for preterm infants born at 23 weeks of gestation (Mercurio, Peterec, and Weeks 2008).…”

Invisible Labours

“…Most women experienced news of a problem with the pregnancy as unexpected and shocking, especially at ultrasound appointments considered to be routine opportunities to 'check' the foetus. As with research in northern Europe on prenatal screening (Heinsen 2018, Risøy andSirnes 2015), women had limited advance awareness of the possibility of the ultrasound and screening 'checks' giving bad news. The teleological ontology of pregnancy is so embedded in understandings of the process that an alternative outcome is not clearly perceivable even as women consent to antenatal screening.…”

“…2. Risøy and Sirnes (Risøy and Sirnes 2015) prefer the term 'decision' to the term 'choice' regarding termination, but this does move away from the language of 'pro-choice' in relation to abortion positions. On the other hand, normalising 'decision-making' rather than 'choosing' in reproductive care seems to introduce more agency and might acknowledge that abortion is not always decided on by a neoliberal subject in a structurally neutral social world.…”

Shouldering Death: Moral Tensions, Ambiguity, and the Unintended Ramifications of State‐sanctioned Second‐trimester Selective Abortion in Denmark

“…Yet such technologies also bring with them the concrete, embodied, and moral work of bringing such choices into action as terminations are set in motion. In a qualitative study of selective abortion in Norway, Risøy and Sirnes ( 2015 ) show how decision‐making following the detection of a fetal anomaly is experienced as a “state of emergency,” arguing that to understand society's regulation of selective abortion, it is necessary to study the logic of such decisions. I suggest that to understand what selective abortion means and, not least, takes , we need to go beyond the realm of the decision and examine how such terminations are experienced, done, and grappled with.…”