Abortion language, nesting dolls theory, and an autoethnographic plea for radical transformation

ABSTRACT

Because of anti-abortion rhetoric, people must dedicate a lifetime to learning what decisions are one's own and how to talk about abortion socially, religiously, politically, secretly, and publicly. In this short article, we rely on the nesting doll theory to unpack the complex layers of rhetoric that control how people understand decision making processes regarding a body's reproductive potential. We use autoethnographic techniques to offer lived experience as evidence of the intricate ways anti-abortion rhetoric and reproductive injustice taints the entire system of bodily autonomy via guilt, shame, coercion, lack of consent, and, ultimately, lack of bodily autonomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-abortion rhetoric
• abortion
• autoethnography
• nesting doll theory

Notes

1 Katie Watson, Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law & Politics of Ordinary Abortion (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018).

2 Amber Johnson, “What's in a Metaphor?: Abortion Rhetoric and the Fight for Reproductive Justice,” FLOW: A Critical Forum on Media and Culture, January 22, 2013, https://www.flowjournal.org/2013/01/what%e2%80%99s-in-a-metaphor-abortion-rhetoric/.

3 Amber Johnson and Kesha Morant Williams, “'The Most Dangerous Place for an African American Is in the Womb’: Reproductive Health Disparities and Anti-Abortion Rhetoric” 5, no. 3/4 (2015): 145–59; Amber Johnson, “Reproductive Racism?” In Media Res: A Media Commons Project, August 22, 2011, http://mediacommons.org/imr/2011/03/21/reproductive-racism.

4 Watson, Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law & Politics of Ordinary.

5 Watson, Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law & Politics of Ordinary Abortion, 198.

6 bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (New York, NY: Routledge, 1984); Stephanie Tillman, Yolonda Wilson, and Lou Vinarcsik, “Healthcare Ethics Scholars Must Uphold Abortion Scholarship And Advocacy,” Bioethics Today (blog), September 15, 2022, https://bioethicstoday.org/blog/healthcare-ethics-scholars-must-uphold-abortion-scholarship-and-advocacy/.

7 Stephanie Tillman, “Midwives, Nurses, and APCs in Abortion Care: Resources,” Feminist Midwife, June 24, 2022, https://www.feministmidwife.com/fmblog/midwives-nurses-andapcs-in-abortion-care-and-provision-resources.

8 Stephanie Tillman and Amy J. Levi, “Midwives in Abortion Care: A Call to Action,” Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health 65, no. 2 (March 2020): 195–98, https://doi.org/10.1111/jmwh.13039.

9 Concerned Clinicians and Public Health Scholars, “No Deal: Providers Sound Off on Trump's Domestic Gag Rule,” Ms., February 26, 2019, https://msmagazine.com/2019/02/26/no-deal-providers-sound-off-trumps-domestic-gag-rule/.