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ABSTRACT
This essay argues that corporeal sound, including the spoken voice and the auscultated heartbeat, can be understood as material rhetoric, and that material rhetoric, by extension, should be understood as both a force and a networked fluid. I illustrate this argument through the case study of abortion practices and policies, arguing that both mandated heartbeat auscultation and physician speech-and-display provisions represent the forceful fluidity of material rhetoric and demonstrate the power of such rhetoric to carve out networks of meaning. Through this networking, sound’s material role in defining autonomy takes on a powerful role in debates over fetal personhood.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Kelly Ford for her research assistance, as well as all those who offered feedback on earlier drafts of this article, including Danielle Endres, Michelle Coplean, Jennifer McClearen, Logan Gomez, NCA’s anonymous reviewers, Mary Stuckey, and the anonymous reviewers for this journal.
Notes
1. Aaron Marshall, 2011, “Ultrasound Images of Two Fetuses Shown to Lawmakers During ‘Heartbeat Bill’ Hearing,” Cleveland.com, March 2, http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/03/ultrasound_images_of_two_fetus.html.
2. “Ultrasound Imaging,” Food and Drug Administration, http://www.fda.gov/RadiationEmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/MedicalImaging/ucm115357.htm.
3. Marshall, “Ultrasound Images.”
4. Caitlin Dickson, 2011, “Fetus to Testify Against Abortion,” The Wire, March 1, http://www.thewire.com/politics/2011/03/fetus-to-testify-against-abortion/17696/.
5. Lisa M. Mitchell, Baby’s First Picture: Ultrasound and the Politics of Fetal Subjects (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001); Rosalind P. Petchesky, “Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction,” Feminist Studies 13, no. 2 (1987): 263–92, doi:10.2307/3177802; Julie Roberts, The Visualised Foetus: A Cultural and Political Analysis of Ultrasound Imagery (New York: Routledge, 2016); Carol A. Stabile, “Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance,” Camera Obscura 28 (1992): 178–205, doi:10.1215/02705346-10-1_28-178.
6. Stabile, “Shooting the Mother,” 178–205.
7. Petchesky, “Fetal Images,” 263–92; Roberts, The Visualised Foetus.
8. Joshua Gunn, Greg Goodale, Mirko M. Hall, and Rosa A. Eberly, “Auscultating Again: Rhetoric and Sound Studies,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 43, no. 5 (2013): 475–89, doi:10.1080/02773945.2013.851581.
9. Michael C. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” in Explorations in Rhetoric: Studies in Honor of Douglas Ehninger, ed. Ray E. McKerrow (Glenview: Scott, Foresman, 1982), 26.
10. Examples of visual abortion rhetoric include Mitchell, Baby’s First Picture; Petchesky, “Fetal Images;” Roberts, The Visualised Foetus; Stabile, “Shooting the Mother.”
11. Joshua Gunn, “Mourning Speech: Haunting and the Spectral Voices of Nine-Eleven,” Text and Performance Quarterly 24, no 2 (2004): 91–114, doi:10.1080/1046293042000288344; Greg Goodale, “The Sonorous Envelope and Political Deliberation,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 99, no. 2 (2013): 218–24, doi:10.1080/00335630.2013.775702; Michelle Comstock and Mary E. Hocks, “The Sounds of Climate Change: Sonic Rhetoric in the Anthropocene, the Age of Human Impact,” Rhetoric Review 35, no. 2 (2016): 165–75, doi:10.1080/07350198.2016.1142854.
12. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” 26 (emphasis original).
13. Barbara A. Biesecker and John Lucaites, “Introduction,” in Rhetoric, Materiality, and Politics, ed. Barbara A. Biesecker and John Lucaites (Pieterlen, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2009), 3.
14. Davi J. Thornton, Brain Culture: Neuroscience and Popular Media (Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 25; Bruce E. Gronbeck, “Jacob Riis and the Doubly Material Rhetorics of his Politics,” in Rhetoric, Materiality, and Politics, ed. Barbara A. Biesecker and John Lucaites (Pieterlen, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2009), 135.
15. Barbara Dickson, “Reading Maternity Materially: The Case of Demi Moore,” in Rhetorical Bodies, ed. Jack Selzer and Sharon Crowley (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 298.
16. Dickson, “Reading Maternity Materially,” 297–313.
17. Susan Hekman, The Material of Knowledge: Feminist Disclosures (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2010).
18. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” 29.
19. Maurice Charland, “Constitutive Rhetoric: The Case of the ‘Peuple Quebecois’,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 73, no 2 (1987): 133–50, doi:10.1080/00335638709383799.
20. Kelly E. Happe, “The Body of Race: Toward a Rhetorical Understanding of Racial Ideology,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 99, no. 2 (2013): 135, doi:10.1080/00335630.2013.775700.
21. Charland, “Constitutive Rhetoric.”
22. Petchesky, “Fetal Images.”
23. Carole Blair, “Contemporary U.S. Memorial Sites as Exemplars of Rhetoric’s Materiality,” in Rhetorical Bodies, ed. Jack Selzer and Sharon Crowley (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 16–57; Carole Blair and Neil Michel, “Reproducing Civil Rights Tactics: The Rhetorical Performances of the Civil Rights Memorial,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 30, no. 2 (2000): 31–55, doi:10.1080/02773940009391174; Kenneth S. Zagacki and Victoria J. Gallagher, “Rhetoric and Materiality in the Museum Park at the North Carolina Museum of Art,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 95, no. 2 (2009): 173, doi:10.1080/00335630902842087.
24. Blair, “Contemporary U.S. Memorial Sites,” 48.
25. Debra Hawhee, “Rhetoric’s Sensorium,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 101, no. 1 (2015): 5, doi:10.1080/00335630.2015.995925.
26. Biesecker and Lucaites, “Introduction;” McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric.”
27. Gronbeck, “Jacob Riis,” 152.
28. Hawhee, “Rhetoric’s Sensorium,” 3.
29. Dickson, “Reading Maternity Materially,” 297.
30. Jamie White-Farnham, “Changing Perceptions, Changing Conditions: The Material Rhetoric of the Red Hat Society,” Rhetoric Review 32, no. 4 (2013): 479, doi:10.1080/07350198.2013.828552.
31. Mary Lay Schuster, “A Different Place to Birth: A Material Rhetoric Analysis of Baby Haven, a Free-standing Birth Center,” Women’s Studies in Communication 29, no. 1 (2006): 1–38, doi:10.1080/07491409.2006.10757626.
32. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” 26.
33. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” 3.
34. Hawhee, “Rhetoric’s Sensorium,” 18.
35. Adriana Cavarero, For More Than One Voice: Towards a Philosophy of Vocal Expression, trans. Paul A. Kottman (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 177.
36. Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003).
37. Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy (New York: Routledge, 1982), 70.
38. Jacob Smith, Vocal Tracks: Performance and Sound Media, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2008).
39. Jacob Smith, Vocal Tracks: Performance and Sound Media, (Berkley: University of California Press, 2008).
40. Theo van Leeuwen, “The Critical Analysis of Musical Discourse,” Critical Discourse Studies 9, no. 4 (2012): 319–28, doi:10.1080/17405904.2012.713204.
41. Blair, “Contemporary U.S. Memorial Sites,” 48.
42. Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978).
43. Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), 296, 181.
44. Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978).
45. Jean-Luc Nancy, Listening (Bronx: Fordham University Press, 2007.); Robynn J. Stilwell, “Sound and Empathy: Subjectivity and the Cinematic Soundscape,” in Film Music: Critical Approaches, ed. Kevin J. Donnelly (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).
46. David Suisman, Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 19.
47. Goodale, “The Sonorous Envelope,” 219.
48. Stabile, “Shooting the Mother;” Bordo, Unbearable Weight.
49. Robbie Davis-Floyd, “The Technocratic Body: American Childbirth as Cultural Expression,” Social Science and Medicine 38, no. 8 (1994): 1127.
50. Robbie Davis-Floyd, “The Technocratic Body: American Childbirth as Cultural Expression,” Social Science and Medicine 38, no. 8 (1994): 1127.
51. Robbie Davis-Floyd, “The Technocratic Body: American Childbirth as Cultural Expression,” Social Science and Medicine 38, no. 8 (1994): 1127.
52. Barbara Duden, “The Fetus on the ‘Farther Shore’: Toward a History of the Unborn,” in Fetal Subjects, Feminist Positions, ed. Lynn M. Morgan, and Meredith W. Michaels (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 13–25; Stabile, “Shooting the Mother.”
53. Shildrick, Leaky Bodies.
54. Butler, Gender Trouble.
55. Butler, Gender Trouble; Shildrick, Leaky Bodies.
56. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 72.
57. Hawhee, “Rhetoric’s Sensorium,” 13.
58. Catherine Pearson, 2010, “FDA Discourages Unnecessary ‘Keepsake’ Ultrasounds During Pregnancy,” Huffington Post, doi:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/17/fda-keepsake-ultrasounds_n_6341940.html; Charlotte Kroløkke, “On a Trip to the Womb: Biotourist Metaphors in Fetal Ultrasound Imaging,” Women’s Studies in Communication 33, no. 2 (2010): 138–53, 10.1080/07491409.2010.507577.
59. John C. Fletcher and Mark I. Evans, “Maternal Bonding in Early Fetal Ultrasound Examinations,” New England Journal of Medicine 308, no. 7 (1983): 392–93.
60. Kroløkke, “On a Trip,” 138.
61. Duden, “The Fetus,” 24; Stabile, “Shooting the Mother.”
62. Quoted in Malea Hargett, 2013, “Arkansas Law on Fetal Heartbeat Breaks New Ground, Supporters Say,” Catholic News Service, http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2013/arkansas-law-on-fetal-heartbeat-breaks-new-ground-supporters-say.cfm; Quoted in Shayla Reaves, “Heartbeat’ Bill Moves Closer to Vote,” 10TV News (2011). Retrieved from http://www.10tv.com/article/heartbeat-bill-moves-closer-vote.
63. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 88.
64. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 72.
65. Bordo, Unbearable Weight.
66. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” 26.
67. Barthes, Image, Music Text.
68. Barthes, Image, Music Text, 188.
69. Barthes, Image, Music Text.
70. Dickson, “Reading Maternity Materially;” Marshall, “Ultrasound Images.”
71. Marshall, “Ultrasound Images.”
72. Stabile, “Shooting the Mother.”
73. Quoted in Marshall, “Ultrasound Images.”
74. Bryan Lowry, 2011, “Sonogram in Senate Committee Room Draws Mixed Reaction,” The Wichita Eagle, http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article1132279.html.
75. Lowry, “Sonogram in Senate Committee Room.”
76. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 72.
77. Duden, “The Fetus.”
78. Quoted in Reaves, “‘Heartbeat’ Bill.”
79. Hawhee, “Rhetoric’s Sensorium,” 2–3.
80. Hawhee, “Rhetoric’s Sensorium,” 5; Barthes, Image, Music, Text, 188.
81. Leeuwen, “The Critical Analysis.”
82. Leeuwen, “The Critical Analysis.”
83. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C. 1:11-CV-804 (2014), 2; Woman’s Right to Know Act, Tex. Gen Stat (2003), Chapter 171.
84. Quoted in “Lawmakers Debate Fetal Heartbeat Bill,” Alabama News Network (2016), https://www.alabamanews.net/2016/03/09/lawmakers-debate-fetal-heartbeat-bill/.
85. Shildrick, Leaky Bodies.
86. Iris M. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 144.
87. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C.
88. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C, 4.
89. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C, 15; Jennifer M. Keighley, “Physician Speech and Mandatory Ultrasound Laws: The First Amendment’s Limit on Compelled Ideological Speech,” Cardozo Law Review 34 (2014): 2347–405; Jennifer L. Pomeranz, “Compelled speech under the commercial speech doctrine: The case of menu label laws,” Journal of Health Care Law and Policy 12, no. 2 (2009): 159–94.
90. Ibid, 34, 38.
91. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C., 38.
92. Shildrick, Leaky Bodies; Butler, Gender Trouble.
93. Ibid, 38.
94. Ibid, 34.
95. Cavarero, For More Than One Voice, 177.
96. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C., 2.
97. Woman’s Right to Know Act, Tex. Gen Stat (2003).
98. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C.
99. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C.
100. Hawhee, “Rhetoric’s Sensorium.”
101. Duden, “The Fetus;” Kroløkke, “On a Trip;” Mitchell, Baby’s First Picture; Stabile, “Shooting the Mother.”
102. Stuart v. Loomis, M.D.N.C.
103. Blair, “Contemporary U.S. Memorial Sites,” 48; Biesecker and Lucaites, “Introduction;” Thornton, Brain Culture.
104. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” 26.
105. Woman’s Right to Know Act, NC Gen Stat § 90-21.85, HB 854 (2011), Chapter 90.
106. Andrew Beck, 2014, “North Carolina Doubles Down on Shaming Women Who Seek Abortions,” ACLU Blog, https://www.aclu.org/blog/north-carolina-doubles-down-shaming-women-who-seek-abortions.
107. Stilwell, “Sound and Empathy.”
108. Stilwell, “Sound and Empathy,” 171.
109. Shuhei Hosokawa, “The Walkman Effect,” Popular Music 4 (1984): 176, italics original.
110. Michael Bull, Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience (New York: Routledge, 2008).
111. Avital N. Nathman, 2015, “The Pregnancy Loss Cards That Say ‘It’s Okay to Scream,’” The Establishment.
112. 2014, “Breaking the Silence on Abortion,” International Planned Parenthood Federation, http://www.ippf.org/news/breaking-silence-abortion.
113. Goodale, “The Sonorous Envelope,” 219.
114. Butler, Gender Trouble, 166.
115. Shildrick, Leaky Bodies; Cavarero, For More Than One Voice.
116. McGee, “A Materialist’s Conception of Rhetoric,” 26.
117. Gerard Allen, quoted in “Lawmakers Debate Fetal Heartbeat Bill,” Alabama News Network.
118. Kirsten West Savali, 2015, “1 Year After Eric Garner’s Death and Black America Still Can’t Breathe,” The Root, July, 17, http://www.theroot.com/1-year-after-eric-garner-s-death-and-black-america-stil-1790860525.
119. Annette Hoffman, “Introduction: Listening to Sound Archives,” Social Dynamics 41, no. 1 (2015): 73–83, doi:10.1080/02533952.2014.983314.
120. Lilit Marcus, 2016, “The Deaf Are the Unheard Victims of Police Brutality, Until Now,” GQ, August 24, http://www.gq.com/story/the-deaf-are-the-unheard-victims-of-police-brutality-until-now; Charles Rabin, 2016, “Cop Shoots Caretaker of Autistic Man Playing in The Street With Toy Truck,” Miami Herald, July 20, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article90905442.html.
121. 2016, “An Overview of Abortion Laws,” Guttmacher Institute, https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws.