Bearing Responsibility:Reconceiving RU486 and the regulation of women's reproductive decisions

Abstract

This thesis explores the status of abortion in Australia and analyses the representations of women that are produced and relied upon in public discourse on this issue. Drawing predominantly on the field of corporeal feminist theory I examine the historical and political-legal context of abortion in Australia over time, and in particular debates concerning the medical abortion drug RU486. I argue that the debate has been informed by dualistic understandings of women as irrational, maternal vessels requiring paternalistic regulation in the interests of the reproduction of the nation. This thesis questions the assumption that oppostion to abortion is primarily motivated by concern for the foetus, and explores and elaborates the gendered and politico-cultural constructions of sexuality, the nation and women's 'natural' role that inform the debate. Finally, I demonstrate that constructs of morality, rationality, sexuality and the nation have: been informed and limited by dualistic imaginaries of women and in response I argue for the feminist potential of an alternative embodied ethical framework.