Misconceived: The Case Against Abortion

This paper examines the underlying political anthropology of women that underlies the strongest pro-choice position of the abortion debate. It finds that anthropology defective in several crucial ways. First, it rejects the premise that individuals can regard their bodies as their property. Secondly, it refutes the notion that self-regarding rights are absolute to the exclusion of other moral limitations. Finally, it problematizes the idea that consent to a certain action regarding one’s body necessarily constitutes ‘the good’ for the individual in question. It argues that the issue of abortion actually sheds light on the inadequacies of what can be described as a pervasive anthropology of autonomous individualism. It advocates instead for a more ‘ecologically’ sound anthropology, of both men and women, which takes seriously their biological nature especially – though not exclusively – with regard to their reproduction and child rearing. The second part of the paper considers the socio-historical rise of ‘second-wave’ feminism and the arguments it deployed which a promoted this ill-begotten anthropology of women to their detriment.