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Abstract
The total criminalization and pervasive stigmatization of abortion in the Philippines constrain women’s reproductive agency. Furthermore, the intensification of regulatory biopolitical mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic also delimits women’s reproductive actions and decisions. Using a queer phenomenological approach drawn from Sara Ahmed’s theorization, this study analyzes 14 abortion testimonies as shared by 14 women in digital spaces during the pandemic. In the findings, I map Filipino women’s embodied encounters during abortion alongside a complex interplay between digital and physical spaces. Here, I highlight the following processes: 1) accessing the digital abortion marketplace, 2) queering everyday spaces into makeshift abortion places, 3) embodying affinities in the digital abortion community, and 4) claiming collective resistance through abortion testimonies. This study discusses empirical and theoretical insights towards women’s embodied precarities and forms of resistance during abortion and in relation to structural violence. I then propose future directions for abortion research in the Philippines, where I also aim to make practical contributions towards advancing reproductive justice.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Nico Canoy for the much needed guidance throughout this research endeavor and Dr. Mira Ofreneo for the unwavering support. I would also like to thank all the women who, in one way or another, have been part of this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Juleini Vivien Nicdao
Juleini Vivien Nicdao is an instructor at the Department of Psychology in Ateneo de Manila University. Her current research interests involve discursive-material approaches to reproductive agency and sexual and gender-based violence.