fetal relationality in feminist philosophy-an anthropological critique

8/17/2019 Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy-An Anthropological Critique

1/25

Hypatia, Inc. and Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Hypatia.

http://www.jstor.org

Hypatia Inc.

Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy: An Anthropological CritiqueAuthor(s): Lynn M. MorganSource: Hypatia, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer, 1996), pp. 47-70Published by: on behalf ofWiley Hypatia, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810321Accessed: 22-02-2016 04:17 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Mon, 22 Feb 2016 04:17:04 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/http://www.jstor.org/publisher/blackhttp://www.jstor.org/publisher/hypatiainchttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3810321http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3810321http://www.jstor.org/publisher/hypatiainchttp://www.jstor.org/publisher/blackhttp://www.jstor.org/


2/25

FetalRelationalityn Feminist

Philosophy:

An

Anthropological

Critique

LYNN M. MORGAN

This

essay

critiques

eminist

treatments

f

maternal-fetal relationality

hat

unwittingly

eplicate

eatures

of

Western

ndividualism

for

example,

he

Cartesian

divisionbetween he

asocial

body

and the

social-cognitive

erson,

or the

conflation f

socialand

biological

irth).

I

argue

or

a more

reflexive

erspective

n

relationality

thatwould

acknowledge

ow

we

produce ersons hrough

ur actionsand rhetoric.

Personhood

nd

relationality

an

be better

nalyzed

s

dynamic,

negotiated ualities

realized

hrough

ocial

practice.

As

fetuses

figure

ever more

prominently

in

the American

social

imaginary,

feminist theorists arecompelledto take notice. The manypathsthroughthis

politically charged

errain

are

all

lined with

contradictions,

creating

a seriesof

persistent

conundrums or

feminist

analysis.

One oft-traveled

road steersclear

of fetuses as an

object

of

study;

ts

proponentsargue

that

to

put

the unborn

at the

center of

analysis

is to

be

co-opted

by

pro-life

strategies

ntended to

divert

attention from women in

the debate over

abortion.Susan

Sherwin,

for

example, suggests

that a

focus on

the fetus is the

defining

characteristicof

nonfeminists

(1992,

101),

and

Janice

G.

Raymondargues

hat

feministsand

fetalists arenot alignedin anyway (1987, 65).1A morerecentlyblazedtrail

acknowledges

hat fetuses

attain social

meaning through

events

not

necessar-

ily directly

related to

abortion.

One

fork

of this

trail winds

through

cultural

studies,

where authors

analyze

fetal texts

and

social

scripts

to

show

that,

as

metaphors,

etuses wield

increasing

social

power

(Berlant 1994;

Duden

1993;

Franklin

1992;

Hartouni

1991,

1993, 1994).

Another

fork

leads into

sociolog-

ical

territory,

where

the

identification,

commodification,

medicalization,

and

legalization

of

fetuses is

documented and

scrutinized

(Boling

1995;

Casper

1994; Daniels 1993; Franklin and Ragone n.d.; Ginsburgand Rapp 1995;

Hypatia

ol.

11,

no. 3

(Summer

996)

?

by

Lynn

M.

Morgan


relacionalidad entre madre y feto

que replica categorías del

individualismo

perspectiva más reflexiva respecto a relacionalidad ...personas a

través de acciones y retórican

terrenopolíticamentecargado

posiciones:poner al fetocomo objetoes caer enestrategiapro vida

adquierensignificadossociales nonecesariamente respectoa aborto

desdesociología,donde lamedicalización ylegalizaciónde los fetos

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/25

Hypatia

Morgan

n.d.;

Rapp

1987,1988,1990,1993;

Roth

1993;

Rothman

1986;

Taylor

1992). These authors, all writing from a feminist perspective, document

society's

current obsession with

fetuses,

but,

with a

few

exceptions,

do

not

examine the

practical implications

of this trend for feminist

analysis.

There

is

another

trail,

narrow

and

steep.

The

explorers

who venture here

have become convinced

that

feminism's

ong-standing

nattention

to

fetuses

has

become a

political liability.

It is

unwise,

they

argue,

for feminism to

continue

to

deny

the

increasing

and

undeniable

moral and social

importance

given

to fetuses

n

European

and North American

society.

They

point

out that

the old maps-the ones that circumventfetal terrain-lead us unwittinglyto

collude

with

architects

of the

anti-woman backlash

who

portray

eminists as

anti-mothersand child killers.

As

feminists, therefore,

they

are

beginning

to

place

fetusescloser

to

the center

of

analysis.

Susan

Bordo,

or

example,

asserts

that we

should

never have

permitted

the

debate

over the status of the fetus

to have achieved

center

stage

in the

public

imagination,

but

ought,

rather,

o

have

attempted

to

preempt

that

debate

with a

strong

feministperspective

acknowledging

and

articulating

he ethical and emotional value

of

the fetus

(1993, 95;

emphasis

n

original). Increasingly,

eminist social scientists,histo-

rians,

and

philosophers

are

beginning

to confront

directly

the

disquieting

implications

for

feminist

analysis

of the

increasing

social

value accorded

fetuses.

They

submit-tentatively,

and

fully cognizant

of the

political

quag-

mires that

lie ahead-that

the

old

paths

lead to sites

we

no

longer

wish to

inhabit

because

they

leave out

significant

dimensions of women's

experience

(see

Addelson

1987,

1994;

C.

Condit

1990;

Daniels

1993;

Porter

1994;

Shrage

1994;

Tsing

1990).

The

time

has come

to

move toward Bordo's

vision of

feminist

perspectives

on fetuses.

There

is much

to

intrigue

and excite within this

new

region

of feminist

inquiry.

Barbara

Katz Rothman was

a

pioneer

with

her

1986

book,

The

Tentative

Pregnancy,

which directed us to the

changing

notions

of

incipient

(fetal

and

infant)

personhood

being

made

possible

by

the

widespread

use of

reproductive

imaging

technologies.

Rosalind

Petchesky,

another

pioneer,

addressed

the dilemmas

of fetal

personhood

in

her classic

Abortion

and

Woman's

Choice

1985).

Linda

Layne's

workon

pregnancy

oss reminds

us

that

we

have at best

ignored

(and

at worst

deliberately

silenced)

an

important

dimension

of the lived

experiences

of women who cherish fetal

life

(Layne

1990,

1992).

Elisabeth

Porter

(1994)

argues

or

a moral

praxis approach

o

abortion

ethics that

would make moral

judgments

about abortion

contingent

on a wide

variety

of

specific, pragmatic

considerations.

But

my

explorations

along

this route also

uncovered a

line of

reasoning

I

find

problematic,

f well-intentioned.

Acknowledging

the fetal

realpolitik

of

our

times,

some feminist

philosophers

are

attempting

to

construct

a vision of

fetal

morality

and

personhood

consistent

with

woman-centered,

pro-choice

politics.

I

will

be

taking

issue with one dimension

of their

work,

namely,

their

48


propuesta esexaminar lasimplicaciones prácticasde esto parael análisisfeminista

Problema deestereconocimie

nto:visión moralde

personhood,centrada enmujeres ypro-choice



4/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

arguments

concerning

the moral

superiority

of relational over

individualistic

oncepts

of

personhood.

They use this point to arguethat

fetuses,

devoid

of

sociality

and

relationality,

cannot and should

not

be

consid-

ered

persons

until

birth.

Anticipating

the

critique

that

follows,

I

should

state

here that

I commend and

support

their efforts

to situate women

(including

pregnant

women)

and

fetuses

in

ethical

frameworks,

paying

attention

always

to women's

location in a matrix of

power. They

are

fully

aware of

how

pregnancy,

childbirth,

and motherhood

enforce

women's

powerlessness

(Burgess-Jackson,

personal

communication).

Their

voices

are essential,

especially

now, when androcentric ethics and anti-woman

policymaking

are all too

pervasive.

When I

critique

their

work, then,

I

do

so in a

constructive

spirit,

in

pursuit

of our common

goal:

to

develop strong,

defensible,

culturally

sensitive

theoretical foundations

for

designing

better

social

policies

affecting

women.

This

essay

offersa

feminist

anthropologist's

eading

of the notion

of

fetal-

social

relationality

as

it is

unfolding

in

selected works

by

Caroline Whitbeck

(1984),

Susan Sherwin

(1992),

Mary

Anne Warren

(1989),

and others.

I will

contrasttheir

interpretations

with some of those foundin the

anthropological

literatureon

person

and

self

(Battaglia

1995a; Carrithers,Collins,

and Luke

1985;

Strather

1992a, 1992b),

to

argue

that the renditions of

relationality

and fetal

personhood promoted by

these

philosophers

are

problematic

on

severalcounts.

First,

and in

spite

of the authors'

attempts

o shed androcentric

Western

biases,

their

relationality

remains

fundamentally,paradoxically,

nd

uncritically

rooted in the Western ndividualismand Cartesiandualism

they

assail.

Second,

their discussionsof the moral

significance

of birth

(Warren

1989)

are

being outpaced

by

social and

technological developments,

and lack

the universal

applicabilityespoused

by

some.

Third,

the

perspective

as cur-

rently

unfolding

could be more

reflexive,

acknowledging

he social and histor-

ical

context that

gives

us

the

categories

we use to

think

about

social-,

parental-,

and maternal-fetal

relationships,

and about the social construction

of

relationality

more

generally.

will

conclude

by

arguing

hat

personhood

hould

be seen as

a

negotiated, dynamic concept currentlybeing

contested

through

many overlappingpublic

discourses

concerning

fetuses.

Feminist

analyses

of

fetal

personhood,

I will

argue,

shouldbe

sociologically

informed,

self-critical,

and

aggressive

about

recuperating

eminist

renderings

of fetuses. This

argu-

ment is

consistent

with

Porter's

(1994)

recent

plea

for a

reflexive,

socially

conscientious moral

pragmatics

f

abortion.

49


sus argumentos están ensuperioridad moral de conceptosrelacionales sobre individualisticos

críticas



5/25

Hypatia

INDIVIDUALISM:

HE

ROOT OF ALL EVIL?

Abortion

challenges

feminists to come to termswith the

contradictions

n

their

own

thought,

notably

the

contradiction

between the commitment

to

community

and

nurtureand the commitment to individual

right.

(ElizabethFox-Genovese,

FeminismWithout llusions:

A

Critique

f

Individualism)

Feministphilosopherswho address he moralstatusof the fetus do so at least

partly

because

they

care about women and are

disturbedand

angered

by

the

erasureof

pregnant

women from an

array

of

public

discourses

including

those

concering

abortion,

poverty,

infant

mortality,

and substance

abuse).

They

watch

uneasily

as the American

public

is

distracted,

enthralled, incited,

and

sometimes

literally

crazed

by proliferating images

of

fetuses,

increasingly

depicted

as

free-floating,

disembodied little babies at

the

mercy

of their

uncaring

or

vindictive mothers. Feminist

philosophers

rightly

want

to

bring

womenback,literally into the picture, o point out once more that afetus

inhabits a

woman's

body

and is

wholly

dependent

on

her

unique

contribution

to its maintenance

(Sherwin 1992, 106).

The

philosophers

I select for attention

here,

however,

are

working

within

the constraintsof

a

continuum

established

ong ago

in the

literature.

One

end

is marked

by

those

who

posit

that fetuseshave

no value

whatsoever,

while

the

other end

is

marked

by

those

who

insist that

fetuses

are full

persons

from the

earliest

stages

of

gestation.2

The

fetuses

have no

value

end of the

spectrum

is

commonly

identifiedwith

writings

n the

early

1970s

by

Michael

Tooley

and

Mary

Anne

Warren,

who were accused of

supporting

nfanticide for

pointing

out that

newborns

possessed

ew

attributes hat

late-gestation

fetuses

did not.

The

other end of the continuum

is

exemplified,

of

course,

by

some

theologians

and

others

in

the

pro-life

movement,

whose membersbelieve fetuses

to be full

human

beings

from

the moment

of

conception

(Noonan

1979).

The feminist

philosophers

I refer to

seek to

position

themselves

along

this

continuum,

to

devise

a view

of

fetal

personhood

which would

permit

elective abortion

throughout

he

gestational

cycle

while

condemning

infanticide.3Warrenand

others

writing

n

the

same vein force

a

wedge

into this narrowniche

by

arguing

that

biological

birth marks a

morally significant

division between

persons

and

nonpersons.

Although

Warren concedes that most

contemporary

philosophers

believe

that birth cannot

make a

difference

to

moral

rights,

she

argues

that

contrasting biological

and

social

relationships

make

even

relatively

late

abortion

morally

different from

infanticide

(Warren

1989,

46;

emphasis

added).

The

philosophical

argument

distinguishing

nfanticide from

abortion,

and

prebirth

rom

postbirth

status,

is rooted in discussions

of individualistic

versus

50


filósofasfeministasquierentraer amujeres alpanorama

peroterminanenmarcadasen marcostradicionales1. fetos notienen ningúnvalor2. personas

completas

Warren,límite denacimientomarca unadivisiónmoral entrepersona-nopersona



6/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

relational

models

of

personhood.

Moral

philosophy

and

ethics,

feminists

note,

are traditionallyderived from male models in which rational,self-interested

actors

arriveat

universalmoral

principles

after

indulging

n

abstract

hought.

Influenced

by

Carol

Gilligan's

(1982)

work on the

gendered

dimensions

of

moral

development,

several

theorists

argue

hat

individualist

deologies

create

a climate in

which social

relationships

are

denigrated

and devalued.

Whitbeck

(1984),

for

example,

argues

hat

individualismand

patriarchy

re

coterminous,

and

that in both social

relations are

inherently

oppositional, dyadic,

and

antagonistic.

Fox-Genovese

argues

hat

pervasive,historically

rooted individ-

ualistic ideologieshave left a perniciouslegacy: Individualism ctuallyper-

verts the

idea of the

socially

obligated

and

personally

responsible

reedom

hat

constitutes the

only

freedom

worthy

of

the name or

indeed

historically

possible

(1991, 7).

These

authors

(along

with

many

others)

argue

that as

feminists we

must resist

individualistic

deologies

to construct a

viable

philo-

sophical

and

political

alternative.

PRIVILEGING

ELATIONALITY

Relationality

is the

preferred

eminist

antidote to

individualism,

as

Sherwin

asserts: The

general

consensus

of female

theorists

is

that

[moral]

theories

should

involve models of

human interaction

that

parallel

he

rich

complexity

of actual

human

relationships

and should

recognize

the moral

significance

of

the

actual ties

that bind

people

in

their

various

relationships

Sherwin

1992,

49).

Relationality

is

presented

as

an

ideologically

undervalued

but

experien-

tially

accurate dimension

of

social interaction. It is

the basis for

Whitbeck's

proposed

feminist

ontology,

n which

a

self-others istinction

replaces

he

dyadic

self-other

distinction,

because

relationships,past

and

present,

real-

ized

and

sought,

are

constitutive of the

self,

and so the actions

of a

person

reflect

the more-

or

less-successful

ttempt

to

respond

o the

whole

configura-

tion of

relationships

Whitbeck

1984, 76).

The

approach

of

these

authors,

as

Kroeger-Mappes

oints

out

(1994, 123),

is to

valorize

elationality,

o offer

it as the

superior

alternative

to

individualism.

Discussionsof

individualismversus

relationalism ind

expression

n feminist

discussionsof

the fetus

in

the

following ways.

In the continuum

mentioned

above,

the

pro-life

position

holds

that fetuses

are full

persons

rom

conception

because

they

possess

intrinsic

properties.

This,

Sherwin

(1992)

argues,

s an

example

of

the

unfortunate

results

of

individualistic

thinking.

Sherwin

says

that

individualism

provides

the

ideological justification

for

presuming

that

persons including

fetal

persons)

must be

wholly,

corporeally

and

ontologi-

cally

constituted,

or else

wholly insignificant.

The

argument

proceeds:

if

persons

are

conceived not

as

self-maximizing

automatonsbut

as

relationally

constituted

and

socially

embedded

beings,

then

the

maternal-fetal

nexus

need

not

be

modeled in termsof

either-or etal

personhood

or

inevitable mater-

51


Distinción filosófica entre aborto einfanticidio está en la discusión entreindividualismo vs modelo relacional depersona

Esta vía propone que comofeministas debemos resistirnosa ideologías individualisticaspara construir una viaalternativa

antídotoseríarelacionalidad

complejaconfiguración derelacionesque seformalizaen el "yo"

individualismo encarnadoen visión delfeto comovidacompleta yautocontenida



7/25

Hypatia

nal-fetal

conflict.4

In

relational

terms,

Sherwin and

others

argue,

fetuses

necessarily move through pregnant women. A fetus is a unique sort of

human

entity,

then,

for it cannot form

relationships

reely

with

others,

and

others cannot

readily

form

relationships

with

it. A fetus

has

a

primary

and

particularly

ntimate

sort

of

'relationship'

with the woman

in

whose womb

it

develops;

connections

with

any

other

persons

are

necessarily

ndirectand must

be

mediated

through

the

pregnant

woman

(Sherwin

1992,

110).

Fetuses,

therefore,

cannot

be

granted

ull

personhood,

because

they

exist

as

compound,

dependent

ontological

entities rather

than as

capable

of

relationships.

Relationalitythus becomes the philosophicaland moralbasis forgranting(or

not

granting)

personhood

and social value to fetuses

and

infants.

It is worth

considering

in

greater

detail

precisely

what Sherwin

means

by

relationality.

Where

does she locate

relationality

(and

where

does she situate

herself)?

This

is

by

no

means an

easy question

to

answer,

because the

philo-

sophical

basis

for

relationality

is located

in

a

particularly

horny

thicket,

and

many

philosophers

are

inconsistent

and

contradictory

on this

point.

Sherwin,

for

example,

seems to vacillate between

biological

and

psychological

bases

for

relationality.

She

puts

the

biological argument

first: Fetuseshave a

unique

physical

status-within

and

dependent

on

particular

women. That

gives

them

also a

unique

social status.Howevermuch

some

might

prefer

t

to

be

otherwise,

no

one

other than the

pregnant

woman in

question

can

do

anything

to

support

or harm

a

fetus

without

doing

something

to the woman who

nurtures

it.

Because

of

this

inexorable

iological

eality,

the

responsibility

and

privilege

of

determining

a fetus's

specific

social status

and value must rest with

the woman

carrying

t

(1992,

110;

emphasis

added).

Biological

explanations

make sense

because

North American cultural

deologies

coax us to look for social

meaning

(such

as

explanations

for

crime

or

poverty

or

homosexuality)

in

biological

phenomena.

Yet it would be

exceedingly

problematic

to

locate

relationality

solely

n

biology,

as Sherwin

is

well aware.

The

question

of

agency

becomes critical

here. There

is

a

tension

in

these

writings

about where

to locate

relationality,

about

how to

imagine

an abstrac-

tion

that

cannot,

by

definition,

reside

within a

single

individual.

Relationality

is an

intangiblebond,

a

glue

that links individuals o one

another

(Strather

1992b, 125).

Yet some

of these writers eem to

link

relationality

o

individual

cognitive

or

corporeal

attributes.

Sometimes

they

locate it

in

the

fetus/infant,

which,

it

is

argued,

annot

participate

n

or form

relationships

until

it

possesses

some sine

qua

non

of

personhood.

This is a time-honored

pro-choice

feminist

strategy:

Those who defend

a

woman's

moral

right

to abort

argue

hat fetuses

lack

one or more

morally

relevant

characteristicsand hence

fall short of

full

moral

personhood,

rightholder

status,

and

membership

n the moral

commu-

nity-as

a result

of which women are

permitted

to abort

(Burgess-Jackson

1994,

142).

Sherwin uses

this

strategy

when,

citing

Petchesky

(1985, 341),

she

modifies her

biological explanation

by arguing

that

personality

( conscious-

52


en términos relacionales, losfetos se mueven a través de lamujer embarazada

fetosexistencomocombinación

el problemade estarelacionalidad es la

oscilaciónentre lobiológico y lopsicológico

la cuestiónde laagencia sevuelve crítica



8/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

ness and

sociability,

n

Petchesky's

erms)

is also a

necessarycomponent

of

personhood (Sherwin 1992, 109). Whitbeck notes (albeit parenthetically):

(Newborns

cannot have

any responsibilities,

and for that reason

may

be

regarded

s

immanent

[sic]

people)

(1984, 80).5

Relationality,

n

other

words,

must be

reciprocal,

but

because

fetuses are ineffective relational

agents,

a

relationship

s

impossible.

On other

occasions,

these same theorists

place

the onus for

relationality

on

the

pregnant

woman.

Petchesky,

or

example,

is

willing

to attributerelational-

ity

at least

partly

o a

pregnant

woman'sawareness

f it:

'Relationship'

means,

first,that there is

interdependence;

nd second, that there is a consciousness f

this,

even

if that

consciousness is

one-sided

[i.e.,

from

pregnant

woman to

fetus]

for a time

(1985, 346).

And

later,

What is irreducibleand

indispens-

able in this

humanization

process

(the

formationof the

'person')

s

the

subjec-

tivityof

the

pregnant

woman,

her consciousness

of

existing

in a

relationship

with

the

fetus

(1985, 347).

Gilligan puts

it

slightly differently,

mphasizing

mater-

nal-fetal

impartibility

rather than the

capacity

of one or another

party

to

develop relationships:

The connection between

the

fetus

and the

pregnant

woman becomes the focus ofattention and the

question

becomes whether it is

responsible

or

irresponsible, aring

or

careless,

o extend or to end this connec-

tion. In this

construction,

the abortion

dilemma

arises

because there is no

way

not to

act,

and no

way

of

acting

that

does

not

alter the connection

between

self

and others

(Gilligan

1987, 25).

There is

a third

approach,

which

would

locate

relationality

neither in the

pregnant

woman nor the fetus

(that

culturallyprivilegeddyad),

but

in a

larger

social network.

Warren,

for

example,

while

citing

fetal/infant

sentience as

one

plausible prerequisite

o

personhood,

also

argues,

It is

doubtful that a

child reared in

total isolation from human or other

sentient

(or

apparently

sentient)

beings

could

develop

the

capacities

for

self-awarenessand social

interaction that are

essential to

personhood

1989, 62).

Social

relationships

elaborated after

birth,

in

other

words,

complete

the achievement of full

personhood

in

Warren's erms.

Whitbeck,

like

Warren,

allows

agency

to be

diffused

through

a network of

already

iving persons

who

constitute,

and

are

constituted

by,

others in a

historically changing

social

world. Her

feminist

ontology

is characterized

by

the

core

practice

... of

the

(mutual)

realization

of

people

(Whitbeck

1984, 65).

This

third

point,

however,

reveals

an under-

lying

contradiction

that Whitbeck and

others

may

be loathe

to articulate.

For

understandable

practical political

reasons,

they

would

prefer

to situate

relationality

either in

intrinsic

properties

of the

fetus

or

pregnancy,

or

in the

pregnant

woman

herself,

or both.

They

are

reluctant to allow

relationality

to

leakout into a

pregnant

woman'ssocial

world

(e.g.,

father,

parents,

riends,

governmentagencies)

because

shared

relationalitymight provide

a

justifica-

tion for

undercutting

her

sovereign

control over the

fate of her

pregnancy.

Sherwin,

for

example, argues

that choices are

never

made outside a

social

53


Relacionalidad debe ser recíproca pero ahí se meten en el problema de laagencia...ESTO SE RESUELVE CON HARAWAY CON LATOUR

agenciaen redsocialescapando de diada

esimportantepensar enla preguntade laagencia



9/25

Hypatia

context,

yet

she also

argues

that

pregnant

women should retain exclusive

control over reproductivedecisions (1992, 102). So even though a woman's

life circumstances

and

the

pregnancy

tself)

are embeddedwithin and deter-

mined

by

a

larger

social

context,

Sherwin's

analysis

solates

the

woman from

that

context in

order

to

justify

granting

her

control

over

reproductive

deci-

sions. This creates a series of

problems,

especially

with

respect

to

underprivi-

leged

women. As Daniels

points

out:

The

right

to

self-sovereignty

also means

the

right

to be

a

free

decision-maker n one'sprivatelife, to have a realmin which

one can be

self-determining.

Yet a retreat into

privacy,espe-

cially

for

poor

women,

can

never securethe

power

of self-deter-

mination. The

power

to

be a free

decision-maker

arisesnot in

isolation,

but in

social onnectiono a whole web of

relationships

that can

empower

women in the

context of

poverty

and domi-

nation.

Self-sovereignty

hus is

indivisible

from

social

empow-

erment.

(Daniels 1993, 134;

see also Porter

1994, 78)

If our

analyses

isolate women from

society,

even

for the sole

purpose

of

allowing

her to control

reproductive

decisions,

we will

have

to

accept any

unsavory onsequences.

Such

analysesprivatize

decision

making,

and could be

interpreted

as

absolving society

of

responsibility

to

foster social

climates

conducive to

bearing

(or not)

and

raising

children. This is but one

example

of

the

paradoxes

and contradictionsthat

invariablyemerge

when

we

argue-as

we must-for both

sociality

and individualism.

An alternative

approach

o

the

problem

of

locating agency

(i.e.,

the locus

of action

and

responsibility)

questions

the

premise

that

it

can be located

at

all

through

a

process

of

philosophical inquiry.

Monica

Casper

(1994),

a

sociologist analyzing

deas about

the volition attributed o

fetuses,

argues

hat

agency

is not an

alreadyexisting

fact

(ontological

or

otherwise)

to be discov-

ered

or revealed but is rather

a

social

project.

There are

many

sites,

she

says,

where

agency

is

discursively

and

concretely configured

and enacted.

Casper

notes that in the case of fetal surgery, gency slipsaround, lidingfromfetuses,

for

example,

to

pregnant

women,

to

medical

practitioners

and

others,

depend-

ing

on

where

the actors

fit into the

power

matrix.

A

feminist

program

hat

explicitly

rejects

the

possibility

of fetal

agency

has to

be

understood as

a

response

to

competing

discoursesthat

grant

active

agency

to fetuses.6

This

political

context

undoubtedly

affects feminist

philosophizing

(and

anthropologizing).

Acknowledging

the

power

relations inherent

in

assigning

agency might

enable us to be more

explicit

about

why

we

might

be

compelled,

right

now,

to

emphasize

relationality

and maternal

agency

over individualism

and fetal

agency.

54


según la autora hay una contradicción entrelas formas de relacionalidad contextuales y eldeterminismo biológico para asegurar lasdecisiones biológicas

Problemas respecto amujeres de bajos privilegios

poder deautodeterminación encondiciones depobreza no sonseguras,autodeterminación noes una cosa aislada,conexión social

problemade aislar amujeres desociedad

privatización de lasdecisiones

el asunto sepuede pensarmás bien alcuestionarsesi agenciapuede serlocalizada através de lafilosofía

Casper:feto no esontológico,es unproyectosocial,agencia seactúa, seconcretadiscursivamente



10/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

CULTURE-BOUND

EMINISTELATIONALITY

Their effortsat culturaldestabilization

notwithstanding,

Sherwin,

Warren,

and Whitbeck are

steeped

in

the same Western

individualism

they

seek

to

undercut;

so

steeped,

in

fact,

that

they

may

not

recognize

the culture-bound

tenor of their

arguments.

The

Western

ethnobiological

view

of

personhood

holds

that

relationality

is

superimposedupon

a

developing, naturally

given

mind-body.

The

Western view also holds that

persons,

once formed

(or

embodied ),

are

corporeally

immutable

and

fixed,

rather than

susceptible

to continuing social influences (Conklin and Morgan n.d.; Strathern

1992a;

Turner

1994).

Persons,

once

established,

retain this

fundamentally

unchangeable

essence. The critical

analytic problem,

therefore,

is

not

to

account

for

the

coming

into

being

of

bodies,

which are

natural,

but

the

coming

into

being

of

persons,

which

are,

presumably,uniquely

social

and

historical.

Relationality

is

considered

by

these authors as

integral

to

person-

hood,

but

not

to

the

body

itself. I will

untangle

the

problematics

of each of

these issues n turn.

First,

Western ndividualism

equires

asa

precursor

o human

personhood

an

already existing

material

corporeality;

biological

existence

must

always pre-

cede

sociality.

In

Warren's

words,

The infant at birth

enters the human social

world,

where,

if

it

lives,

it becomes

involved in social

relationships

with

others,

of kinds

that

can

only

be

dimly

foreshadowed before birth

(1989, 56).

Corporeal integrity

and

skin-encapsulation

thus

prefigure

the

person;

the

individual

body

is viewed as a

biopsychological

blank slate

upon

which

people

later write. In Mackenzie's

words,

The more

physically complex

and

devel-

oped

the

being

is,

the more value we

attribute

o

its

potential

for

personhood

(1992, 145).

This

biological-social

developmental

dualism extends to

the

mind,

too,

which

comes to

possess

its

morally meaningful

qualities (e.g.,

sentience,

consciousness,

responsibility) hrough

physioneurological

rocesses

considered

argely

asocial and

unstoppable.

Sherwin

argues

in

this vein that

fetal

relationality

is

impossible during

pregnancy,

becausethe

fetus's

ability

to form

tsown

relationships

s

forestalled

by

the

presence

of the

pregnant

woman's

body.

She

implies

that

relationships,

in

order to be

morally

valid,

should

be held

by

individuals

(what

we

might

think of as

in-dividu-ables ).

ikewiseWhitbeck

asserts hat the

relations f

the self to others

are relations

among analogous

beings

1984, 76).

By

this she

means

that

persons

are created

through mutually

constitutive,

reciprocal,

communicative

processes

rather than

through

domination

or

annihilation

(1984, 76),

but I

interpreted

he

phrase analogous

beings

also

to mean that

these

beings

should be

biologically independent

of

each other.

Whitbeck's

self-others

cheme does not

problematize

he

autonomous

Western

person

or

self.

A

wholly

realized

relationality

hinges,

in

the views of Sherwin

and

Whitbeck,

on

the notion

of

corporealautonomy.

55


rekacionalidad es sobre personas y no sobre cuerpos que serían fijos

cuerpoindividuales basepara

relacionesposteriores

implícitamente que

relaciones,para sermoralmenteválidasdeben serentreindividuos.No seproblematiza la personaoccidentalautónoma



11/25

Hypatia

An

alternative

view

ofpersonhood might interpret

bodies not as blank slates

but as the literal instantiationof socialrelations.These more radicalvisions of

the relational

body-person

can

best

be illustrated

by examples

from societies

where the

body

is

thought

to

be more

than a materialsubstrate

upon

which

meaning

is encoded

(see

Butler

1990, 129),

specifically

and

predictably),

with

examples

from non-Western

societies.7In the

Brazilian

Amazon,

for

example,

indigenous

peoples commonly emphasize

he father's

contribution

to

forming

a child. The Shavante

say

that the father

literally

orms

he

fetus from semen.

Frequent

ntercourse,

specially

during

the fifth

month,

is

required

o

effect

a

pregnancy.

As one Shavante

explained

the

process

. . . while

ticking

the

months

off with his

fingers: Copulate.

Copulate,

copulate, copulate,

copulate

a lot.

Pregnant.Copulate, copulate,

copulate.

Born'

(Maybury-Lewis

967,

63,

quoted

in

Scheper-Hughes

and Lock

1987,

19).

Beth

Ann Conklin

points

out that

among

the

Wari'

of the western

Amazon,

the father's

ommitment

to

creating

a

child's

body/person hrough repeated

coitus means

that

pregnancy

can

never

be a

mistake ;

very

pregnancy

s instead the

result of

deliberate,

concerted social

initiative

(Conklin

and

Morgan

n.d.;

Conklin

1995).

Many

non-Westernvariantsof relational

personhood

stressthe

permeability

of bod-

ies

in

nature-culture

ransformations;

or

example,

The

Suya

cosmology

does

not mark

two

distinct

poles

of

nature and

culture

standing

in

permanent

opposition.

Rather there are

degrees

of naturalnessand

degrees

of socialness.

Social

life is thus

a constant socialization

or naturalization

of human

beings,

bodies,

animals,

and

space

(Seeger

1981,

119).

The

person --even

before

birth

and after death-is

never

perceived

as a natural

r asocial

entity.

The

physical

substance

of

the

body-flesh,

blood,

and

bones,

as

well as

personal-

ity-is

literally

constructed-and

continually

reconstructed-by

and under

the watchful

care

of others

in

a

social world.The

body

and the

person

are thus

coterminous,

and the

body/person

s

valued

socially

precisely

because

t is

the

product

of

specific

social

interactions.

One

other

difference

between non-Wester

relationality

and

Western

em-

inist

relationality

concerns

the

role

of

physiological

nurturance

n

creating

persons.

By physiological

nurturance

am

referring

o

more than

the ethic

of

caring

for children

and others

(so

often stressed

n the

West);

people

in

many

non-Wester societies

insist

that the

exchange

of

food and

body

substances

actually

create

kinship

and

personhood

Meigs

1984).

They

often tie

gradients

of

personhood

to the

exchange

of

body

substances

(such

as

blood, sweat,

or

breast

milk),

rather

than

to

the

ability

of newboms

to

interact,

respond,

or

form social bonds

as

in

Western

societies. Yet Whitbeck

(1984,

65),

for

one,

shies

away

rom

the term

nurturing

ecause t

connotes feminine

selflessness.

The

Reagan-era

social

context

of her

remarks

needs to be

kept

in

mind,

yet

one wonders

about

denying

the

importance

of nurturance

n

creating

children

just

because

the

concept

has

historically

been

used

to

oppress

women.

A

child

advocacy

slogan

currently

in

vogue

says,

It takes

a whole

village

to raise

a

56


personacomoinstanciade

relacionessocialesvisionesmásradiacales-Butler-donde elcuerpo esmás queunsubstratomaterial.

el embarazono puede ser

un error,procedimientos del padrecontinuos, esel resultadode unainciativadeliberada yconcertada

sociedaddonde noexiste cuerpo-natural puesse construyey re construye

rol decrianzapsicológicaesdemasiadooccidental

crianzacomoaltruismo-feminidad



12/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

child.

The cross-cultural

omparison

remindsus that

nurturing

s not

every-

where or automaticallylinked to the self-sacrificingmother (see Scheper-

Hughes

1992),

but can rather

be conceived as

a

quality

distributed

hroughout

communities

of men and

women,

which hold

a

collective

responsibility

or

bringing

other

people

into

being.

Marilyn

Strather

notes

that

in Melanesia

incipient persons

contain

other

persons,

have

other

persons

implied

in

[their]

constitution

(1992b,

152).

Reproduction

n

Melanesia, then,

as in

many

non-Western

societies,

is not a

process

of

linking

etuses

and/or

infants with other

persons-of superimposing

sociality

over a

biological

substrate-but

of

differentiating

he

new

person

from

the

others

(including supernatural

beings

and

animal

persons,

as well as

parents

and other

kin)

who contributed

to

the creation

of this nascent

being.

Whereas

Sherwin

might

locate the

essence

of

personhood

in

a

fetus/infant's

corporeality

or in its

ability

to communicate and

respond

(1992, 111),

an

alternative

perspective might

view

the

fetus/infant

as

a

motley

amalgam

of

many

social influences which enable

its

constitution. These

might

include

social events (such as the failing contraceptionor acquisitionof a better-pay-

ing job),

personality

traits inherited from

important persons

(such

as

the

whistling

grandmother

or

gardening

dad),

and substances

(such

as

prenatal

vitamins,

or

peanut

butter

on

seven-grain

bread).

In

other

words,

an

alterna-

tive view of

personhood

could

perceive body

substance

and

not

just

the

cognitive

self)

as

socially

constituted.

Relationships

could then be

implied

and

highlighted

at

every stage

of

potential,

incipient,

and

emergent personhood,

from the social context

of

courtship

and

sexuality through

conception

and

early gestationthroughbirth, socialization,education,and initiation through

to the end of the life

cycle.

The claim that

body/persons

are

created

through

physiological

nurturance

has

implications

for how

we

might

reframe

pregnancy

termination and

fetal

death.

A

woman

(or

her

partner[s],

or

relevant others in her

social

world)

might

elect

not

to sustain

or

nurture he fetal or

infant

body.

This would

not

constitute

active

killing

(the

terms in which

induced abortion is so

often

described),

but the

failure

to

complete

the

social

process

of

producing

body/persons.The ethnographic iteraturecontains numerous

descriptions

of

sickly

or

stillborn

infants

whose dis-ease is attributed to

failures

of

social

nurturance in

utero

(Conklin

and

Morgan

n.d.;

Scheper-Hughes

1992).

I

should

emphasize,

however,

that

the

decision to discontinue an

emergent

person

n

non-Westernsocieties

is

rarely

a freechoice

undertaken

by

women

acting

in

their own

individualisticbest

interests,

as

Westernfeminists

might

imagine

it.

Such a

decision is more

likely

to

be the cumulative

result of

a

number

of

unstable or

unpredictable

ocial

contingencies

(such

as the

illness,

absence,

or death

of

relevant

parties,

or

the

inability

of

the social

group

to

generate

the kin

commitmentsneeded to

nurture

a

future

child).

As

such,

the

57


no se puede universalizar crianzaoccidental

una visiónalternativaentoncespuede serel cuerposubstanciacomosocialmenteconstituido

cuerpo/ persona através decrianzatienemuchasimplicaciones sobremarco delembarazo

resultadode

contingenciassociales



13/25

Hypatia

discontinuation

or termination of

a

prospective

etal or infant

body/person

s

an eminently social anddynamicprocess.

Cross-cultural ariations

n

ideologies

of

personhood

are

important

o this

argument

not

(just)

because I write as an

anthropologist,

but because

my

anthropological

sensibilities are unsettled

by

the claims of

some

feminist

philosophers

who

plant flags

on

pancultural

erritory.

Whitbeck,

for

example,

argues

hat her

responsibilities

pproach

o ethics has

a

greater

potential

for

cross-cultural

applicability

than does the

rights

approach

1984,

80).

This

may

be

true

in

the limited

sense,

but Whitbeck does

not

acknowledge

the

extent to

which the

responsibilities

pproach

erives rom a

historically

and

culturally pecific

rather han

a

universalnotion of

personhood.

One wonders

whether

Whitbeck

privatizes

moral

agency (qua personhood)by

locating

it

in

individuals

i.e.,

in discrete

persons/bodies)

rather than in social

groups,

hus

overlooking

the connections

among

rather

than

between)

people

that under-

lie

social

organization

n

many

societies. Can a

philosophy

that

normalizesa

particular

ultural

ormever account for

negotiated

enactments

of

personhood

in relation to changing configurationsof poweracrossthe globe?How could

such a

philosophy

account for

relationshipsamong

groups

such

as Arabs and

Jews),

whose

identities are

continually reconfigured

by

politics?

How can we

think about

societies where moral

agency

extends

beyond

the human

realm,

for

example,

when animals or ancestors are considered

moral

agents?

We

should

be

skeptical

of

any

approach

hat

essentializes ndividual

bodies/persons

in

uniquely

Western

ways.

THE MORALAMBIGUITY

OF BIRTH

Being

awareof the historical

[and

cultural]

articularity

f

moral

concepts

allows us

to

adopt

a

healthy

caution

about

absolutist

positions

and to

question

ongoing

moraldebate.

(ElisabethPorter,

Abortion

Ethics:

Rights

and

Responsibilities )

One avenue

of feminist

response

to abortion

politics

has been to reassert

what

Virginia

Held

(1987,

122)

and

Mary

Anne Warren

(1989)

call the

moral

ignificance

of

birth.

Birth

is

morally significant

because it marks

the end of

one

relationship

and

the

beginnings

of

others ....

Although

the

infant

is not

instantly

transformed

nto a

person

at the moment

of

birth,

it does

become

a

biologically

separate

human

being.

As

such,

it

can

be known and cared

for

as

a

particular

ndividual.

(Warren

1989, 62;

my emphasis)

58


descontinuación de fetocuerpo/persona es unproceso socialvariaciones culturales!!

noción deresponsabilidad vienede unanociónuniversalde persona



14/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

Likewise,

Sherwin

argues

that fetuses

differ

from

newborns,

who

immedi-

ately begin to develop into persons by virtue of their place as subjects in

human

relationships

(1992, 111).

The

dividing

line between full

persons

and

non-persons

should be

drawn,

say

Held,

Warren,

and

Sherwin,

at

biological

birth.

This

argument

s

problematic

on

at

least three counts.

First,

as discussed

above,

it

relies on

a

biological

reductionism

by using

physical autonomy

(i.e.,

separateness)

as the

most

important

qualification

for

personhood.

Second,

it

romanticizesa

disappearing

poch

in which

biological

birthdid

mark he

social

beginning

of

personhood,

and

ignores

an

emerging discontinuity

between

social and

biological

birth in North American

society.

And

third,

it

does

not

allow for

gradations

n

value

which

make ate

gestation

fetusesmore

significant

than

early gestation

fetuses.

There was a time not

long ago

in the United States when

biological

birth

did mark the social

(as

well as

legal) beginnings

of

personhood.

Parents-to-

be

typically

had to wait until

biological

birth to know the

baby

and

bestow its selected

gender-specific

name.

Biological

birth

was

ritualized-

phone

calls

in

the wee

hours,

cigars,

gifts,

announcements,

photographs-

in

recognition

that the occasion

marked the

beginnings

of social

identity

and

personhood.

Whereas

many

non-Western societies have

traditionally

distinguished

between

biological

and

social birth

(see

Morgan

1989),

in

the

United States

the two were

historically

conflated.8 The social

reality

has

since

changed.

Social and

biological

birth have

become

uncoupled

in

the United States

over the last twodecades.As a resultofreproductive maging echnologies,the

commodificationof

babies,

and other social

changes,

the

attributionof

person-

hood

(what

I

call

social

birth )

can now

precede biological

birth. The result

is a

new,

unprecedentedcategory

of fetal

persons

(see

Duden

1993;

Petchesky

1987;

Rothman

1986).

These

late-gestation

fetuses are

gendered

and

named;

their

pictorialrepresentations ppeal

frombillboards

and

hang

(in

the form of

ultrasound

cans)

on walls and

refrigerators.

n

the media

they

are

increasingly

depicted

as

active,

technologically sophisticatedagents,

shown on

television

(in an AT&T ad) talking on the telephone (Taylorn.d.), or convincing

adults to

buy

a

particular

kind of car

(Taylor

1992).

It

is

my

contention

that

those who

set

off to

prove

the natural

mportance

of

birth

forgot

to

keep

an

eye

on

the weather.

Their rhetoric

of

birth

as the

moral

dividing

line between

persons

and

nonpersons

is

simply unconvincing

in an

era when

ever

greater

ocial

value is

being

attached to fetuses

(especially

wanted, viable,

third-trimester

fetuses).

Furthermore

(and

here

I

para-

phrase

Sawicki

1991,

86),

arguments

or the

moral

ignificance

of

birth are

doomed to

be

politically

ineffective

because

they

do not

resonate with the

experiences

of

women who

desire and

create fetal

personhood through

their

59


según varias, la línea divisoria entre personascompletas y no-personas debería ser trazada en elnacimiento biológico. PERO ESTO ESPROBLEMÁTICO

i.reduccionismobiológico,autonomíacomo lomásimportante

para serpersonaii.lo biológicocomomarca queignoranuevastecnologíasiii.no haygradosentre fetosmásgrandes ymáspequeños

en eeuu elnacimientosocial y elbiológico se

separaron...tecnologías...

"fetalpersons"

momentoen el que sele estádando granvalor sociala los fetosTECNOLOGÍAS



15/25

Hypatia

avid

consumption

of

infertility

treatments, amniocentesis,

ultrasound,

and

in-uterovideo services.

Fetal

personhoodpresentsundeniably

difficult

challenges

for

feminist

anal-

ysis,

but

ignoring

or

denying

the

phenomenon

will

not make it

disappear.

Rather than

stating categorically

that

fetuses,

after

all,

are

not

yet

persons

(Purdy

1990, 278),

we

need now

to

direct attention to the

morally

relevant

gradations

that

occur within

the

gestational

period (Noddings

1989;

Porter

1994).

Distinctions

between

early-

and

late-gestation

fetuses

are

critical

to

abortion

politics.

Yet

Sherwin dismisses he semantic

(and

thus

the

practical

andmoral)distinction between

embryo

nd fetus,

xplaining

that she will

use the

term

fetus

o

cover the entire

period

of

development

from

concep-

tion to the end of

pregnancy

(1992, 251).

This is

unfortunate,

because

Sherwin's

metonymic

reduction forces even the

sympathetic

reader

to

invoke

a

mental

image

that

lumps together

viable

late-gestation

fetuses

(which

can be

read as social

persons)

with

unformed

early-gestation

embryos

(see

C.

Condit

1990, 83).

Whereas

Sherwin talks about the fetus as an undifferentiated

or

mono-

lithic

entity,

other feminist social scientists are

analyzing

the social

prac-

tices that work to establish

(or

to

resist)

different

kinds,

qualities,

and

degrees

of

fetal

personhood (Casper

1994;

Morton

1994).

The fetus can

symbolize

and

encapsulate

a

number

of

timely

social issues

(Oaks n.d.).

Although

the abortion

debate

is

the most contentious

public

context

influencing

our

society's

views of fetuses

today,

it should be noted that

multiple

new

meanings, emerging

from

developments

in

law,

medicine,

religion,

and

popular

culture,

are

being generated

and affect

the

way

we

think about fetuses. These

overlapping

discoursesneed to be identified and

disentangled,

lest

they

all be

erroneously

construed

as

variations

on the

abortion debate.

The so-called

infertility

epidemic,

for

example,

has

gener-

ated

its own narratives

of

pregnancy

loss and attendant

meanings

of

fetuses

(Inhorn

1994;

Layne

1990, 1992;

Sandelowski

1993).

There

is

intense

negotiation

over

meanings

in fetal

surgery

units as fetuses become

objects

of

work

(Casper

1994),

and

in courtrooms as

lawyers

debate

the

legal

status of the unborn

(D.

Condit

1995;

Gallagher

1987).

As

the

contexts

for

fetal discourse

proliferate,

it will be

increasingly

clear that we cannot talk

about

the fetus but rather need to talk

about a

diversity

of

situations

and

perspectives

which

carry

with them

many

different

meanings.9

60


tenemosque poneratención alos gradosque seestándando en el

períodogestacional

"el feto"estánombrando unacantidaddecuestionessociales

en cirugíasfetales, seconviertenen objetosde trabajo yobjeto dedebate en

lasCORTES



16/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

THE

USES

OF FETUS ALK

An

approach

o

selfhood

as an embodied and

historically

situated

practical

knowledge

...

prompts

a

larger

question

of

rhetoric,

namely,

what

use

a

particular

notion of self has for

someone

or for

some

collectivity.

(Debbora

Battaglia,

Problematizing

he

Self: A Thematic

Introduction )

If we

apply

Battaglia's insight

to the motivations of feminist theorists

thinkingaboutincipientpersonhood,we can better understandwhywe could

be reluctant to

engage

in

fetus

talk. We know

that

our discursive

practices

(including

our

silences)

have

social

consequences.

If

we talk

about

fetuses,

then,

or

write

about them in the

pages

of

our

journals,

we

come

dangerously

close

to

ceding territory

to

pro-life

activists

who benefit from the reifica-

tion

of

fetal

persons

(see

Pollitt

1992).

The threats to

reproductive rights

are real and must not be

underestimated,

but the

pro-choice

philosophical

discourse

I

have described here carries another set

of

disquieting

social

and

political implications.

Consider

the

problematicconsequences

of

positing

biological

birth as the

normative,natural,

and most sensiblemoral

dividing

ine between

persons

and

nonpersons.

First,

this assertion

collapses

a

potentially

useful distinction

between

biological

and social birth which

might help

make

sense

of contem-

porary

hifts in the

social

(and

moral)

significance

of

biological

birth and the

social construction of

early personhood

in

Europe

and the

United States.

Second,

emphasizingbiological

birth

ipso

facto divides women into

categories,

natural

mothers

being

those who

respect

the

moral

significance

of

birth,

unnatural mothers

implicitly

those who do not

(for

example,

those who

deposit

their

newborns in trashcansor abandon

them

in

hospital

nurseries).

Warren

allies herself

with

women

possessed

of

something

akin to a maternal

instinct

when she

says,

Most women

readily accept

the

responsibility

or

doing

whatever

they

can to

ensurethat their

(voluntarily

continued)

pregnan-

cies

are

successful,

and

that no

avoidableharm comes to the fetus

(1989, 58).

While it

may

be

unfair o take Warren's

omment out

of

context-she was

not,

after

all,

writing

about

fetal abuse

or

the

punitive

actions taken

against

pregnant

substance

abusers-her statement

is

unfortunately

and

unintention-

ally,

I

hope)

consistent with a

dichotomy emerging

n

the

popular

press

that

distinguishes

good

mothers romthe bad

mothers who

victimize

their

own

children.

But

we

live

in

treacherous

imes,

when we can

expect

our own words

to be used

against

us. Rather

than

interrogating

the

nefarious

dichotomy

between

good

and bad

mothers,

or

noting

the backlashor

the

privatized

moral

economy

embedded within

it,

Warren

uncritically accepts

a

stereotype

of

criminalmonster

motherswho

neglect,

abuse,

abandon,

or kill their

newborns

or

children

(Tsing

1990;

see also

Boling

1995).1?

The monster

mothers'

per-

61


implicaciones de hablar o nohablar de fetos

partobiológicocomo lo másnatural y lomás positvoes doblefilo---terminaesencializan

do el instintomaternaltambién

Warrenterminaaceptandoacriticamente elestereotipo de lamadre-monstruo



17/25

Hypatia

sonal

stories,

no

matter how

grim,

can

never be made to

justify

their actions.

Held argues,similarly,that the capacity for mothering emerges from the

natural acts.

Using

that

logic,

she denies on

biological

grounds

the

male

potential

for

adequateparenting:

Since

men,

then,

do not

give

birth,

and

do

not

experience

the

responsibility,

he

pain,

and momentousnessof

childbirth,

they

lack the

particular

motives to value

the child that

may spring

from this

capacity

and this

fact

(Held 1987,

125).

This

kind

of

rhetoric

implicitly

reinforces

he

assumption

hat all women who have babies are

good

moth-

ers.1

It

also

severely

imits

the

creative

possibilities

or

co-parenting,

commu-

nal

parenting,adoptive parenting,

or other formsof

raising

children

by

those

who are not

the

birth mothers.

The

emphasis

on

biological

birth

creates

a

third

problem.

It denies

legiti-

macy

to

a

growing

number

of

people (including pro-choice

women and

men)

who

may occasionally

attribute

personhood

to

late-gestation

fetuses. Their

experiences

and

logic

are sometimes

sensitively

portrayed

n the

ethnographic

literature

(Rapp

1987, 1990;

Rothman

1986;

Sandelowski

1993),

but would

not

fit

comfortably

nto the

philosophical

iteraturediscussed

here. If

biologi-

cal

birth marks he

beginnings

of

personhood,

s

there room within feminism

for those

who

deeply

mourn

early miscarriage,

or

those

who bestow

person-

hood

on

late-gestation

etuses?

Kathryn

Addelson,

citing

C.

Wright

Mills,

notes

that the

explanations

people

offer are themselves

in

need of

explanation

(Addelson 1987,

91).

If

we

assume that our

analytic assumptions

derive

from

particular

social and

intellectual

traditions,

then

we

have

a

responsibility

o formulate

responses

with a heightened awareness o the historical and culturalidiosyncraciesof

those

traditions,

and

to

make

our

reflexivityexplicit.

I

wish,

for

example,

that

Warrenor Sherwin

had

acknowledged

how

difficult

it is to discussabortionas

a

problem

linked

to

qualities

of the fetus ratherthan

to

the

social context

of

parenting

(see

Burgess-Jackson

994,

15).

I

wish

they

were more

attentive

to

the

changing

social

significance

of

biological

birth and the

proliferation

of

meanings

attaching

to fetuses.

I

wish

they

could

imagine

a

relationality

that

overridesrather

than

replicates

Cartesian

dualisms,

or a form of

relationality

that mightbe patternedcompletelydifferently n anothersocial,national, or

historical

context.

I wish

they

would be as candid about

their

political

moti-

vations as

Monica

Casper,

who

states,

As

a

pro-choice

feminist

from

a

nation

where abortion

is

one

of the most contentious

and divisive issues

n

the

public

arena,

where the

fetus has

emerged

as a

major

cultural con ...

at

the

hands

of antiabortion orces

granting

t

personhood,

and

where

abortion doctors are

now

being

murdered

by pro-life

error-

ists,

I am

quite

resistant

o

engaging

in

any

practice

that

grants

agency

to the

fetus.

(Casper

1994,

851)

62


esencializar quita la posibilidad de pensar posibilidadescreativas de maternidad-paternidad

el últimoproblema es

entonces si

esta barreraexisteentonces pqla gente seencarniñacon losfetos?

esfundamental!!! tener encuentacontextos enlos queformulamosrespuestas



18/25

Lynn

M.

Morgan

We need to

acknowledge

hat

we are not

revealing

truths bout

the

person-

hood of fetuses (or others), but ratherengaging in the process (historically

and

culturally

situated)

of

producing persons

ourselves,

through

our

actions,

reactions,

and

rhetoric

(including

our academic

rhetoric).

Our

actions and

writings

create a

vocabulary,

a

rhetoric,

a set

of

meanings

with

which

to

make sense

of

fetal

personhood

and

relationality.

Precisely

because the

political

stakes

are so

high,

those

of us who write

about

fetal

relationality

have

a

responsibility

to

be

reflexive

and

self-critical,

to think

about

the

kind

of

world we want to

create.

OF INSTRUMENTALERSONHOOD

ND MORAL

PRAGMATICS

Formalized otions of

personhood

are not to be

construedas

descriptive

of a

static,

preordained,

ocial

world;

hey

are

instrumentalitieswhich

people

actively

use

in

constructing

and

reconstructing

a

world which

adjusts

values and

goals

inheritedfromthe pastto the problemsandexigencieswhich

comprise

their social existence

in

the here and now.

(Michael

Jackson

and

Ivan

Karp,

Personhoodnd

Agency:

The

Experience f Self

and Other n

African

Societies)

Early

anthropological investigations

of

personhood

tended to

overdraw

discrepancies

between cultures.

Non-Western

cultures were sociocentric

compared

o

egocentric

Westerncultures

(Shweder

and

Bourne

1984).

The

ideal

types-approach

as

begun

to fall out of

favor,however,

fetal relationality in feminist philosophy-an anthropological critique

Documents