Rhetorics of reproductive justice and injustice in the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

ABSTRACT

In this forum, feminist rhetorical scholars address reproductive justice and injustice in the aftermath of Dobbs. Exhibiting diverse perspectives, concerns, and critical approaches, forum contributors consider topics such as the reinforcement and disruption of the gender binary in the discourse surrounding Dobbs; privacy and precarity in the homeland security state; the structures of power and control that perpetuate gendered violence and reproductive injustices; how anti-abortion arguments are “nested” within one another in a structure that obscures their complexity; and how radical and reformist rhetoric might productively respond to the conservative judicial and legislative climate that resulted in Roe’s repudiation.

KEYWORDS:

• Abortion
• reproductive justice
• Roe v. Wade
• women’s rights
• U.S. Constitution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “The Dobbs v. Jackson Decision, Annotated,” New York Times, June 24, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/24/us/politics/supreme-court-dobbs-jackson-analysis-roe-wade.html.

2 Larissa Jimenez, “60 Days After Dobbs: State Legal Developments on Abortion,” Brennan Center for Justice, August 24, 2022, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/60-days-after-dobbs-state-legal-developments-abortion; Annie Karni, “House Passes Bill to Ensure Contraception Rights After Dobbs,” New York Times, July 21, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/us/politics/house-contraception.html; Annie Karni, “Graham Proposes 15-Week Abortion Ban, Splitting Republicans,” New York Times, September 13, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/us/politics/lindsey-graham-abortion.html; “Tracking the States Where Abortion Is Now Banned,” New York Times, September 9, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html.

3 Bill Chappell and Nell Clark, “The Supreme Court’s Majority and Dissent Opinions on Dobbs Reveal a Massive Schism,” NPR, June 24, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1107445443/supreme-court-majority-and-dissent-opinions-dobbs-reveal-schism.

4 Jill Lepore, “Of Course the Constitution Has Nothing to Say About Abortion,” The New Yorker, May 4, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-there-are-no-women-in-the-constitution.

5 Michele Goodwin, “No, Justice Alito, Reproductive Justice Is in the Constitution,” New York Times, June 26, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/26/opinion/justice-alito-reproductive-justice-constitution-abortion.html.

6 Ellie Silverman et al., “Protests Erupt in D.C., around the Country as Roe v. Wade Falls,” Washington Post, June 24, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/24/supreme-court-abortion-protests-roe/ ; Editorial Board, “The Ruling Overturning Roe Is an Insult to Women and the Judicial System,” New York Times, June 24, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/opinion/dobbs-ruling-roe-v-wade.html.

7 Katie L. Gibson, “In Defense of Women’s Rights: A Rhetorical Analysis of Judicial Dissent,” Women’s Studies in Communication 35, no. 2 (2012): 126, https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2012.724526.

8 Katie L. Gibson, “The Rhetoric of Roe v. Wade: When the (Male) Doctor Knows Best,” Southern Communication Journal 73, no. 4 (2008): 313 and 327, https://doi.org/10.1080/10417940802418825.

9 Jessica Glenza, “How Dismantling Roe v Wade Could Imperil Other ‘Core, Basic Human Rights,’” The Guardian, December 11, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/11/supreme-court-roe-v-wade-gay-rights-contraceptives-fertility-treatments.

10 Kathleen M. de Onís, “Lost in Translation: Challenging (White, Monolingual Feminism’s) with Justicia Reproductiva,” Women’s Studies in Communication 38, no. 1 (2015): 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2014.989462; also see “Reproductive Justice,” Sister Song, accessed September 14, 2022, https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice; Catherine H. Palczewski, “Reproductive Freedom: Transforming Discourses of Choice,” in Contemplating Maternity in an Era of Choice, ed. Sara Hayden and Lynn D. O’Brien Hallstein (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 73–94; Tasha N. Dubriwny and Kate Siegfried, “Justifying Abortion: The Limits of Maternal Idealist Rhetoric,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 107, no. 2 (2021): 185–208, https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2021.1903538; Leandra Hinojosa Hernandez and Sarah De Los Santos Upton, “Insider/Outsiders, Reproductive (In)Justice, and the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Health Communication 35, no. 8 (2020): 1046–50, https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2019.1602819; 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,” Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric 5, no. 3/4 (2015): 145–59; Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz and Shui-yin Sharon Yam, “Queer(Ing) Reproductive Justice,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, November 29, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1195.

11 Dubriwny and Siegfried, “Justifying Abortion,” 187.