From Reproductive Rights To Reproductive Barbie: Post-Porn Modernism and Abortion

From Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Barbie: Post-Porn Modernism and Abortion Author(s): Laurie Shrage Source: Feminist Studies,
Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 61-93 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178495 Accessed: 11/04/2010 01:38
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FROM REPRODUCI'IVE RIGHTS TO REPRODUCIIVE BARBIE: POST-PORN MODERNISM AND ABORTION Laurie Shrage
of Theweakest, manipulating by inscriptions all sortsobsessively the andexclusively, become strongest. and -BrunoLatour, 'Visualization Cognition" In "The Folk Song Army," Tom Lehrer sings: "Rememberthe war against Franco;That's the kind where each of us belongs; Though he Politicalpromay have won all the battles;We had all the good songs."1 radicalshave often scored on the populargressives and counterculture culturefrontwhile losing theirbattlesfor greatersocialjustice.Yet,with the public debate over abortion,the situation is the reverse.Although feminists have won the major legal battles, clinic-protesting"fascists"2 have the popularsongs and folk art pertainingto abortion.For example, talented rap singers, hip-hop artists, and reggae stars have written Grassangry, sad, and admonishinglyrics about the evils of abortion.3 root organizationshave produced dramaticand compelling films and videos, depicting miniature humans at life's beginning or brand-new people who are alreadythe victims of our society'sills.4Politicaldissidents have staged emotionalstreet protests,with babes-in-armscast as "American holocaust survivors" (supposedlychildrenborn after Roe v Wade), set against poster-sized photos of "Americanholocaust victims."5Painters have composed images that compare women's health centerswith death camps and drawthe attentionof a publicincreasingly informed about genocide atrocities (fig. 1). On the Internet, voiceover baby cries haunt photo galleriesfeaturingfetal corpses.6 Exploiting the conventionsof horror,tragedy,folk narrative, guerrillaart, antiand abortionproductionsprovide dramasof lives in crisis and societies on the verge of destruction,on a cosmic scale. movementhas been By contrast,the primaryicon of the "pro-choice" a coat hanger,an item deployedto remindus that without "choice" deswomen will inflict harm upon themselves. The coat hanger perate
Feminist Studies 28, no. 1 (spring2002). 61
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Fig. 1. Peter Frega, "TheAmericanHolocaust,"<http://www.frega.com/ bigholocaust.html>.
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insists that we cannot do away with abortions;we can only determine how they will be performed-back-alleyjobs or safe, clinic abortions. The intended message is that the latter are obviously preferable.Unthe popularmedia campaignequatingintentionfortunately, "pro-life's" al abortionwith infanticide,bad mothering,and even ethnic cleansing and lynching(fig. 2 and 3)7 makes the need for safe abortionsless obvious. Moreoverthe coat hanger'sintended meaning is often missed or displaced.A student recently told me that, until he was in college, he was underthe impressionthat the standardway to performan abortion was with a coat hanger:he thoughtthat the curvedend of the coat hanger was used to pull the fetus out. Althoughthis student is stronglyprochoice, the image of the coat hanger triggeredin his mind an image of fetal harm, not harm to women. Indeed, the coat hanger has been appropriatedas an image of fetal harm by some pro-life proponents (fig. 4). Althoughthe web site featuringthe image in figure4 does not claim and to offer "a cross section of to be either "Pro-Lifeor Pro-Choice," ideas rather than a one sided argument,"it offers ten anti-abortion images, and two links to sites with more anti-abortionimagery,while featuring only one pro-choice image.8This image is a variation of the coat hangertheme with words "Abortion Happens/MakeIt Safe."After the ten images of babylikefetuses, one can only wonderwhose perusing safety we should be concerned about. Was the creatorof this web site biased or simplyat a loss for pro-choiceimagery? For more than a decade now, feminist scholarshave studied the culturalweapons of the anti-abortionmovement,althoughthis scholarship has yet to lead to new forms of rhetoricor activismin defense of abortion. In this article,I will providean overviewof feminist scholarshipon the "pro-life" movement'svisual propaganda,which has culminatedin the issuing of calls for new cultural interventions. I will analyze why these calls for action have not yet been answered.I then examine some art "pro-choice" producedby feminist artists and activists.I end by exploringseveralideas for new images that drawon worksby postmodern performance artists, especially the artistic productions of politically activesex workers. The Invention of Fetal Autonomy In 1984, RosalindPetchesky9 called attentionto a significantshift in the justificatorylanguage and conceptual tools of anti-abortiongroups in the decadefollowingRoe v Wade.By the mid-1970s,the predominantly Christian"pro-life" movementbegan to pursueits legal and social agenda by invoking scientific authority to defend an essentially modern Catholicdoctrineabout the beginning of life. Savvy"pro-life" advocates began to discuss abortion not merely as a failure to understand and obey the will of Godbut also as a form of ignoranceabout the workings of nature.Theyraisedobjectionsto abortionnot in terms of the prolifer-
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Abortion: a Fig.4. "Preventing Beethoven?" WhatDo YouThink?<http://www.geocities.com/athens/styx/9699Cracfe.html>.
Fig. 2. Protesterat DenverPlanned Photoby EdAndrieski.

Parenthood Clinic, 28 June 2000.
(GAP),The Centerfor BioFig. 3. Posterfrom "TheGenocideAwarenessProject" EthicalReform.<http://www.cbrinfo.org>.
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ation of unbaptizedsouls but in terms of the human qualities of sociTo ety's most vulnerablemembers.'? make us see the human qualitiesof "theunborn,"abortionfoes began amassing and circulatingpictures of fetuses caughtin the gaze of the latest biologicaland medicalscience. By aggressivelymarketingand publicizingthe fetus, such as with the television broadcastingof The Silent Scream, "thefetus rose to instant stardom," according to Petchesky."Her work showed that anti-abortion groups have succeeded in changing common understandingsof pregnancy and abortion, although these groups have so far failed in their ultimate legislative aims. Ultimatelyshe demonstratedthat the representation of abortionas a mortalstrugglebetween a fetal individualand a woman has a relativelyrecent history, althougha potentiallydangerous futurefor abortionregulationin the United States. Petcheskywas one of the first feminist scholars to call attention to "the culturalguerrillawarfareagainst abortions"1' the need to opand it. In 1987, she argued, "we have to restore women to a central pose place in the pregnancyscene. To do this, we must create new images that recontextualize fetus, that place it back into the uterus, and the the uterus back into the woman's body, and her body back into its social Yet, feminist activists and artists have been slow to develop space."'3 new reproductive images that displacethe powerfulfetus. In 1995,feminist art critic LucyLippardobservedthat "nonew icons have emerged. The fetus still reigns.We have to get the little buggeron our side, transform its unbornbathos into the miseryof the unwantedchild as well as the horrors of the exploited woman's body.""4 Petchesky,Lippard Like notes both the relativeimpoverishmentof "pro-choice" imageryand the need to revisualizereproduction. whereas Lippardfavorsimages of Yet, miserable children or exploited female bodies, Petcheskyis proposing less negativeimages. Petcheskystates: "Thestrategyof antiabortionists to make fetal personhooda self-fulfillingprophecyby makingthe fetus a public presence addresses a visually oriented culture. Meanwhile, finding 'positive'images and symbolsof abortionhardto imagine,feminists and other prochoiceadvocateshave all too readilyceded the visual terrain."'5 Petcheskysuggests visually placing Lippard's"littlebugger" inside women's bodies in order to create women-centered images of pregnancythat will challengethe fetus-centeredones wielded by "prolife"advocates. Following Petchesky,a workinggroup at the Centrefor Contemporary CulturalStudies in Birmingham,England, called the Science and TechnologySubgroup,documentedthe use of scientificfetal imageryin the propagandaof "pro-life" groupsin England.In the late 1980s, there was an unsuccessful campaign to approve a bill in the British Parliament prohibitingabortionsaftereighteen weeks of pregnancy.In introducing their analysis of the public and legislative debate over this bill, the members of the Science and TechnologySubgroupcomment that
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their project "wasundertakenbecause of our convictionthat, although feministshave won short-termgains, we fear we may be losing the larger struggle over commonsense assumptions about abortion."Noting some of the ways feminist strategies have failed, the subgroup states that "[i]npitting the right to choose against the right to life, feminists run the risk of losing public sympathies,and being constructedas selfThe indulgent and irresponsible."16 reflections of this group highlight the need to examinewhy the ideals of choice and individualfreedomare proving inadequate to defend abortion against the tactics of abortion
opponents.17
In her contribution the Science and TechnologySubgroupproject, to SarahFranklinexamineswhat she calls the "'biologization' anti-aborof tion rhetoric."In particular,Franklinexamines how supportersof the bill parliamentary constructed"thefetus as separate,as an individualin its own right,deservingof state protectionand medicalattention" apby pealing to the fetus's "bio-genetic uniqueness and its potentialfor biological growth."Franklinpoints out that these biological criteriahave come to take precedencenot only over religiouscriteriaof personhood but also over social criteriaas well (e.g., a person'splacein a kinshipnetwork or its potentialfor social growth and support).Franklinends her politics."She states: essay with a callfor "anew languageof reproductive "In order to develop terms that are woman-centredand responsiveto the realitiesof women'slives as mothers,workersand personsin society, must be reclaimedas a social process involvingsocial perreproduction sons who are interdependentand whose right to exist is not bound up Another contributorto the subwith notions of radicalseparateness." group,DeborahSteinberg,arguesthat "wemust challengethe construction of pregnantwomen as two (hostile)persons.... Is it not also possible to understanda pregnantwoman as one person, or as SarahFranklin has put it, 'onewho becomestwo,'but is still one in that becoming?"18 What kinds of images, then, will visuallyreintegratethe fetus with a woman's body in order to challenge the prenatal "baby" pictures that constructpregnancyprimarilyas a story about a new person? Pictures that "place[the fetus] back into the uterus, and the uterusback into the woman's body," as Petchesky suggests, may challenge fetal-centered notions of pregnancy,but will they challenge the equally problematic "two-hostilepersons"view? For these more complete images may suggest not one body in the process of division,but one discretebody inside another. And how might visual images present pregnancy as both a social and biologicalprocess,when they seem to focus our attentionon concrete and visible bodies ratherthan on intangiblesocial phenomena? Supposing we cannot fashion appropriate images, does the Petchesky/ subgroup approach suggest any catchy campaign blurbs-ones which can contest the logic of the anti-abortion slogans or Stops a Beating Heart"? "EveryoneDeserves a Birthday" "Abortion
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These questions are difficult to answer. Yet, I'm not entirely skeptical aboutthe Petchesky/subgroup proposal,for certainlyabortionfoes have shown how images can assist our imaginations. I do think, however, that we need to see more concreteand practicalproposalsbeforewe can take action. Whereasothers note the use of ultrasoundfetal images to influence cultural conceptions of reproduction,Valerie Hartouni examines the culturalconcepts availableto interpretthe fetus image given to us by science and circulatedby the mass media.19 Hartouni recognizes that images-whether of fetuses alone or attachedto women-do not necessitate particularreadings, and thus examines how particularmeanings become obvious. Using language to defamilarizenow-familiarimages and to detachtheir usual meanings,Hartounidescribes
the appearanceof strangeand fantasticimages of fetuses in bus terminalsand public restrooms, as well as on billboards,magazine covers, and the evening news. These images present a prenatalentity with seeminglytranslucentskin, suspendedin empty space or floatingfree, vulnerable,autonomous,and alone, suckingits thumbin some representations, raisingits hand beseechinglyin others.... Now, what this is supposedto be an imageof seems obvious,and it does not appearparticularly or chimerical implausibleuntil one stops to considerthat no fetus ... simplyfloats, alone,in emptypublicspace,unconnected,self-generwhat it Moreover,no fetus (or image) is self-evidently ating, and self-sufficient. is, thus raisingthe obviousquestion:Whator who exactlyis this?2
Petchesky and Hartouni both suggest that the mass circulation of obstetricalultrasoundimages has contributedto the constructionof the fetus as a tiny autonomousindividual,a humunculus,or a little patient in need of medical services.2The autonomousfetal patient is a product not only of a voyeuristicmedical culture and a media-savy "pro-life" movementbut also of a society saturatedwith liberalindividualistpolitical discourses, accordingto Petcheskyand Hartouni.The fetus represents "man" his naturalcondition;a protocitizentrappedin a state of in naturevis-a-vis a pregnantwoman. The mass distributionof obstetrical images urges the public to bring this little guy out of the state of nature and into civil society. Hartouni considers whether it is possible to represent or cast the fetus "asa foreignpresencethat feeds on or off a woman'sbody"rather than "an individualpotentiallyput at risk"by that body. Such a reassignment of meaningwould convey,as Lippardsuggests, "thehorrorsof the exploitedwoman'sbody."Yet, this recastingis essentiallycaught in the "twohostile persons"model of pregnancy,althoughone of the "persons" has a degraded, and possibly dehumanized, status. In another passage, Hartouniurges reproductiverights activists to interrupt"'the visual discourseof fetal autonomy'-developinga vocabularyof relationship that reembodiesthe disembodiedfetal form or resituatesthe gestating fetus in a uterus,the uterus in a body, and the body in social rela-
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tions, thereby re-memberingwhat is otherwise dismembered."2This call for action combines Petchesky'simperativeto "restore women to a centralplace in the pregnancyscene"with Franklin'sdesire for a "new language of reproductivepolitics"that reintegratesthe fetus with the female body and emphasizesthe social aspects of human reproduction. How can we translatethese ideas into practicalstrategiesfor contesting the discoursesof contemporary science, medicine,politics, andjournalism? These discourseserase women while transforming contents of the their wombs into prenatalpatients and citizens, as the authorsI've discussed have shown. Yet, images of pregnancy that merely add back women'sbodies and drawattentionto how fetuses exploitthem are also likely to participatein the constructionof fetuses as miniaturepersons, albeit not autonomous or very nice ones. Moreover,representingthe fetus as a parasitic "foreignpresence"-a socially marginal creature threateningour well-being-couldmobilizexenophobicimageryin order to conveythe horrorsof an unwantedpregnancy.Imaginefor instance, miniatureillegal migrants,stereotypedforeignnationals,blood-sucking aliens, and menacing squattersor refugees. Others have made similar the proposalsto demonizeand "monster-ize" fetus instead of the mother who abortsit. For example,Eileen McDonaghcomparesthe fetus in an unwantedpregnancywith an intruder,kidnapper,rapist, colonizer, enslaver,or cancerthat invadesor hijacksa woman'sbody.23 Must we degradeand dehumanizethe fetus in orderto contest "prolife"imagerythat aims to upgradeand humanizeit? Mustwe portraythe fetus as a devil in disguise or a wolf in baby'sclothes in order to challenge images that angelicizeit? Visuallycorruptingor taintingthe fetus seems a questionablepractice,which means that Hartouni'scall to action moves us no furtherthan the calls of Petcheskyand the Scienceand TechnologySubgroup.Fortunately,Hartouni'ssuggestion that we pay attentionto the sociallyacquiredknowledgewith which we read reproductive imagery is more helpful. Whatevernew images we create, we need to anticipatethe culturalcontextsin whichthey will be received,as well as the multipleand contradictory readingsthey can generate. or KarenNewman has questioned the strategy of "re-membering" of addingbackwomen'sbodies to visual representations reproduction.2 Newmanarguesthat "thepresentationof the fetus as autonomoushas a much longerhistory" than manyfeministtheoristsrealize,a historythat predatesby many centuriesfetal ultrasoundor fiber-opticimaging,from which many "pro-life" groupsbuild their stock of images.Newman analyzes illustrationsfrom obstetricaltexts writtenfromthe thirteenthcentury to the present. These illustrationsfeature childlikepeople floating in disconnecteduterinecontainers.Newmanwritesthat "[t]heseearliest visualizationsof obstetricalknowledgeillustratea core schema that was well into the eighteenthcentury:a uterusseparatedfromthe reproduced female body and a seeminglyautonomousfetal figure."25 Becausemod-
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em visualizationmethodsthat effacewomen'sbodies do not representa significantbreak from long-standingillustrationconventions,Newman to questionsthe strategyof revisualizingreproduction addressthe public's increasingpreoccupation fascinationwith the fetus. and BarbaraDuden has recently challengedNewman's assumption that the obstetricalillustrationsof previouscenturiesprovideillustrationsof The older models and drawingsof uteruses and free-floating"fetuses." their contents reveal not the now-familiarfetal figure-large head, tiny body-but the figures of significantlymore mature children.Duden reminds us that the interpretationsattachedto these earlierillustrations by their contemporaries may differsignificantlyfrom our own interpreYet, tation's.26 althoughNewman'sreadingsof earlierscientific illustrations may be ahistorical, Newman recognizes the instability of the meanings attached to currentmedical depictions of reproduction.For Newman, current fetal images are ambiguous, not because of differences in backgroundbeliefs but because ultrasound technology produces fuzzy abstractions and unrealistic-lookingportraits. These abstractions, according to Newman, "unhinge"their referents, thereby creatingwhat she calls "referential panic."To diffusethis panic, generor an "expert" technicianwill assist a laypersonin decipheringand, ally in importantly, humanizingthe image.27 Newman arguesthat, because of their lack of realismand consequent referentialambiguity,contemporarymedical imagery may actuallybe helpful for the defense of abortion.Newman explainsthat nonrealistic, fuzzy ultrasoundimages do not obey the classicalconventionsof visual representation.Images that obey these conventionsappearto re-create the perspectiveof an observingsubjecton an object, a human perspective that then guides the meaning of the image. Because an ultrasound image is not treated as a realisticrepresentationof what some illustrator saw, interpretersneed not access the illustrator's perspective,and a space is opened for othersto interjectwhat they see in the image. Given the interpretiveopenness of the image, Newmanconcludesthat at in [N]ewformsof visualization occupy the veryleastan uneasy position the debatesaboutreproduction. the one hand,the New Right's On contemporary of deployment these fetalimages,as in TheSilentScream,the anti-abortion filmpurporting record abortion; constitution fetology obstetto an the of and ricsaround fetusas an individual needof diagnosis treatment... all in and the thesefactors the and on collapse mimetic the simulated behalfof a humanist hermeneutics to rhetoric.... Onthe otherhand,the new enabling "pro-life" visual apparatusescan potentiallybe harnessedto counterclassical and Renaissance modesof representation, disrupting cultural thus the logicof individualism relieson perspective-the that rationalization sight-andan observof to such ingsubject interpellated humanize simulated images. Theright's of insistent and demands to inscription fetusas "baby" feminist the restore woman's a both bodyto obstetrical representation display profound humanist for nostalgia therealist image... .2
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In a realistframework, fetal image provesthe realityand value of the the fetus, and likewiseimages of women'sbodies conferontologicalstatus upon women.29 Insteadof generatingnew imagerycontainingwomNewman proposes that we attemptto challengethe public'srealist en, attitudesto images, especiallythe assumptionthat scientificimages give us the world as it is. Unfortunately, Newmansays no more abouthow to our "profound humanist nostalgiafor the realist image,"and challenge the correspondingconviction that some images can provide us direct access to reality.Moreover,she also seems to ignore the practicalchallenges of empoweringpatientsto contest the controlthat technicaland scientificexpertswield over the meaning of the ultrasoundimage. Furthermore,the fuzziness of the ultrasoundimage may just be a technological phase. There are now "three-dimensional"fetal ultrasound When these are images that providea more realistic-seeming portrait.30 in mass circulation,it will be more difficult to treat obstetricalultrasounds as referentiallyambiguous abstractions and to neutralize the public'sdesires for realistfetal images that supposedlyreflectthe world as it is. Contra Newman then, wielding interpretive power over new and improved ultrasound images, or any reproductive imagery, may be impractical.Yet, contra Petchesky and others, replacing fetal images or with presumablymore "realistic" adequatewomen-centeredimages of pregnancynot only reflectsa naive realismabout images but also the idea that there is a single best way to representpregnancy.This idea is In absolutistand ethnocentric,as LynnMorganpoints out.3' the last section of this article, I will propose that reproductiverights proponents develop new images of pregnancythat can challengethe public'sdesire for more realismwhile callingattentionto how realityis shapedby culture. These nonrealistimages of pregnancywould not purportto offer scientificglimpses at the worldbut, instead,would highlightthe culturally situated aspects of the representationaldevices they deploy. Such representationsof pregnancy images can provideparodies of "pro-life" in orderto denaturalize them.32 In developingnew images,it will be necessaryto reexaminehow contemporary obstetrical visualization technologies have influenced the abortion debate. Lisa M. Mitchell and Eugenia Georges, for example, of have comparedcommon interpretations ultrasoundimages in Canais da and Greeceand have found that in Canada"ultrasound about the in Greece"fetusand reconnectionof individuals"; however, separation es remain relationalbeings whose personhoodis constitutedprimarily through social networks."33 Importantly, in the Greek context, the of ultrasoundhas not given rise to public fetuses or to viruprevalence lent, public anti-abortionrhetoric but, instead, is associated with the Western modernity of the women who use it. By contrast, in Canada, like the United States,obstetricalultrasoundhas contributedto the pro-
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duction of autonomous prenatal patients. (Not surprisingly,a recent New York Times headline reads: "CanadaSees Abortion War Turn Mitchell and Georges's ethnographic work Violent, Services Fall."34) culturalcontext in which ultrasoundis used may demonstratesthat the be more significant in shaping the public's anti-abortion sentiments than the "raw" technology itself. This comparativework underscores dominationto its Jana Sawicki's warning"toavoid reducingpatriarchal
technologies."35
Similarly,Janelle S. Taylorhas found that ultrasoundplays a role in constructingthe fetus both as a person from the earliestdevelopmental stages and as a product or commodity,subject to quality control and, ultimately,abortionif it is found to be defective.36 Tayloranalyzesparticularjustificationsgiven for ultrasounduse in U.S. medical contexts. She claims that althoughsome practitionersappealto the general psychologicalbenefits of reassuringpregnantwomen that their fetuses do not have any health problems,"theonly medicaljustificationfor ordering the examinationin any individualcase is the reasonablesuspicion that it will reveal problems, and one of the primaryjustifications for offering ultrasound screening to all women on a routine basis is the expectationthat fetuses exhibiting anomalies will be aborted. Medical articles on ultrasound explicitly make this link between 'reassurance' and selectiveabortion,especiallyin connectionwith cost-benefitassessIn ments."37 this context,ultrasoundis not aboutprovingthe realityand value of the fetus but about screening the fetus for health defects and ultrasoundimagingparabortingit when it doesn'tpass. Paradoxically, in constructingthe fetus both as a prenatalpatient deserving ticipates societal protectionand as an object that must meet certainproduction standards and ideals before it has the right to continued support. Although the latterview of the fetus is much more likelyto serve the purposes of abortion defenders, it leads to the promotion of abortion in cases many feministsfind hardto tolerate,such as sex-selectedabortion and the abortionof most fetuses with disabilities.Thus, the fetal image, as producedby science and deployedin differentcontexts,has no single or inevitableimpacton the abortiondebate. Visibility Politics Considera page from a children'sfan magazinefor consumersof Beanie Babies (fig. 5). The page packagesinformationfor juvenile readerslike an investment firm promoting stocks and mutual funds to potential buyers.Relevantquantitativedata are presentedby bar graphsthat plot a commodity'spricehistoryand projectedfuturevalue. Presumably, the child-readerof Mary Beth's Beanie World analyzes the financial data presented here in order to make an informed decision about what "plush toys" she or her parents should purchase. Alternatively, if it seems absurdto suggest that investment considerations,let alone cur-
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rent market price, has much influence on a child's consumption patterns, then what are these bar graphsdoing here? Bruno Latourhas argued that scientific advances are made not by individuals grasping or formulating new ideas but by the practice of amassing and arraying inscriptions-that is, representations in two(and sometimes three-) dimensional space of what is not present.38 By using visual technologies, such as photographs,maps, graphs, models, and, now, hypertextdocumentsretrievableon the Internet,intellectual opponents support, defend, argue for and against particularviews and positions. Images and inscriptions, according to Latour, provide a "unique advantage ... in the rhetorical or polemical situation. 'You doubt of what I say? I'll show you.' And, without moving more than a few inches, I unfoldin front of your eyes figures,diagrams,plates, texts, silhouettes, and then and there present things that are far away and with which some sort of two-wayconnectionhas now been established. I do not think the importanceof this simple mechanismcan be overestiThe mated."39 importance of this simple mechanism for the abortion controversyis suggestedin MeredithMichaelsremarkthat "bythe time of the Roe v. Wadedecision,visibilityhad alreadybegun to displaceviability as an ontological measure."40 Eventually, Michaels's comment the state'sinterest in and protectionof human life will begin the warns, momentthe fetus can be broughtbeforeour eyes (i.e., conception). Similarly,BarbaraDuden observes: "Certain graphics convincingly create the illusion that abstract notions have a tangible reality.... view." Graphsin a newspaperadvertisethe rationalityof an 'objective' For instance, it may be hard for some to see the financialvalue of bags (admittedlycute bags) of plasticbeans, but graphaftergraphrendering visible the absurdlyhigh prices some customers have paid for Beanie Babies help parents, if not children,rationalizethe purchaseof dozens of toys. The graphs transformconsuming practicesinto investing and circulatethe knowledgethey obtain savingpractices.Beanie "collectors" from the graphs, which further lowers their inhibitions on spending. Duden states: "Now,we see what we are shown.... This habituationto the monopoly of visualization-on-command stronglysuggests that only those things that can in some way be visualized,recorded,and replayed at will are part of reality."41 Beanie Baby marketingphenomenon, The which transformedcheap, mass-produceditems into rare "collectibles" is an example of how a clever arrayof inscriptionscan render real and rationalwhat is very questionablyreal (the rarityand value of cheaply producedbeanbag toys) and doubtfullyrational (wealth accumulation through Beanies). Beanie consumers see, in their piles of plastic beanbags, what they have been shown. Duden shows how the "habituation the monopolyof visualizationto on-command" currentlyworks in favorof "pro-life" proponents.We see what we are shown and what we are shown is the fetus: a human-look-
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ing, baby-resembling, childlike fetus, and the abused and murdered fetus. The fetal image is persuasive.Accordingto Faye Ginsburg,"the
idea that ... confrontation with the visual image of the fetus . . . will
'convert'a woman to the pro-life position has been a centraltheme in both local and national right-to-lifeactivism.A popular quip summarizesthis position:'Ifthere were a windowon a pregnantwoman'sstom"42 ach, there would be no more abortions.' To make the public confront the visual image of the fetus, abortionfoes generatewhat Latourrefers to as "thecascade of ever simplifiedinscriptionsthat allowharderfacts One to be producedat greatercost."43 such fact is that the fetus, fromthe moment of conception, is biologically unique, complete, and human, and thereforea humanbeing and a subjectwith needs and claims. The controversialweb site, "TheNuremberg Files,"which links to variousfetus photo archives,demonstratesthe continuedconfidenceof abortionfoes in the persuasivepower of the fetus image. This web site offers a new, more violent, twist on the quip relatedby Ginsburgabout how fetus exposurescan convertnonbelievers.The webmastersof "The NurembergFiles"state: "Wecan end the AbortionWar if we ram the images of the babiesbeing slaughteredinto the minds of everycitizenin this nation. Ramthose images into their minds until the vast majorityis readyto vomit out legalizedabortion.. ."4The creatorsof this web site want to force others to ingest unpalatableimages in orderto chase out old opinions. Latour claims that "[h]e who visualizes badly loses the encounter;his fact does not hold."45 Evidently,the authorsof the "The Files"aim to visualize well. The site opens with the words Nuremberg "VISUALIZE Abortionistson Trial."By depicting doctors as criminals art software),and fetuses as victims,these "pro-life" activists (using clip commandus to see the criminalnatureof abortion. Can we find an image for the reproductive rights arsenalthat would have persuasive power equal to the fetus? In the film, Leona's Sister Gerri, a journalistproclaims:"Whatis, has alwaysbeen, the answerto This abortedfetuses is dead women."46 remarkis offeredto explain, in how a photographtaken of a particularwoman, a few hours after part, she died from an illegal abortion,ended up in Ms. magazine.Evidently, the photo was used without the family'sknowledge.The film explores the reactions of immediate family members to their discovery of the the publishedphoto. In the documentary, dead woman'ssister eventureconcilesherselfto the politicalimportanceof its use; the woman's ally daughters feel its publication exploits their already violated mother. to the Watchingthe film, I find myselfsympathetic the daughters: use of the photo by Ms. and other abortion rights activists exploits another woman's suffering and reduces her to a political symbol. Images of women who have died from unsafe abortionscan be persuasive,but we need to be respectful toward the dead and their loved ones. Unfortunately, respectfultreatment of these images means that they should
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not be deployedsensationallyor anonymouslyin signs and placards,for such locations leave no room for the narrativeinsuringthat a woman's life is not reducedto her abortion.Yet,with an accompanying narrative, the images become more complicated,and the politicalmessage may be lost or ignored.Leona'sSister Gerri,which providesmany other images and details of this woman'slife, partlyatones for her earlierexploitation by abortionrights activists. This film itself is a useful educationaland politicaltool, but it is unlikelyto get the exposureof a photo in Ms. or a typical"pro-life" poster. Deadwomen, however,are not the only answerto abortedfetuses.As a stand-infor the dead woman, abortionrightsopponentshave used the simpler, less manipulative,coat hanger image. The coat hanger poses the followingrhetoricalquestion:which is the lesser evil, legal abortions or illegal abortions?Unfortunately, question concedesthat abortion the is an evil, only a lesser one than the evil of giving women "no choice." Imaginea similarargumentfor legalizingdrugs:if we don'tkeep addictive drugslegal, then desperatepeople (addicts)will resortto more dancamgerous ones, or dangerousmeans to get them. The accompanying could deploy an image of an instrument associated with illegal paign druguse (for example,a dirtyneedle) to remindus that if we don'tallow legal access to drugs,drugusers will resortto back-alleydrugsand dealers. This isn't a bad argument or campaign, and some do defend the legalizationof drugsin this way,but I doubtit will workto get the public in the United States to take seriouslythe legalizationof so-called recreational drugs. For if recreationaldrug use is regardedas an evil, then no arguingthat people will use drugs recreationally matterwhat society does to deter their use is not persuasive. Surely fewer people will use if drugsrecreationally they are illegal,and severe measurescan be taken to further discouragepeople from breakingdrug laws, such as stiff or mandatorysentences for law breakers.To campaignfor the legalization of recreationaldrugs, supportersneed to tackle the assumptionthat all recreational drug use is evil. Similarly,to campaign for reproductive rights that include access to abortion, supporters need to tackle the assumptionthat all abortionsare evil. For example,can we changethe social meaningof abortionso that it becomes associated with delayed, planned, and responsible reproduction, ratherthan the wrongfuldestructionof human life? Canwe represent the evils of involuntarypregnancy,without representingthe fetus as an evildoeror the pregnantwoman as desperateenoughto use a coat hanger? For, even if women do not resort to bad abortions, policies leading to involuntarypregnanciesare bad and we need to have some way to show this. Ratherthan representfetuses or pregnancynegatively, should we represent abortion opponents, at least violent abortion opponents,as evildoers?And, can we, as CaroleStabilesuggests, represent pregnancy"asworkthat women may, or may not, choose to under-
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take"?47 Below I will suggest ways that we may be able to do some of these things. Previous calls for imageryto effectivelyrespond to the fetus image have focused almost exclusivelyon developingnew images of pregnancy. As I discussed earlier,some of these calls for action suggest that we need to supplantthe wrong view of pregnancywith a better one-perhaps a more experientiallyaccurateview. I agree with Lynn Morgan, however,that there is no single best view of pregnancyand thus no single best way to represent it. For instance, the negative depictions of pregnancyproposedby some feministtheorists can eclipse other meanings, such as the hope andjoy pregnancycan signify.As LindaL. Layne movinglypoints out, the conceptionsof pregnancyfavoredby abortion activistscan make it hard to acknowledgeor understandthe pain many of women have experiencedwith miscarriages.48 Representations pregnancy serve differentends, and whateverimages we fashion, we should their partialityand incompleteness.Moreover,imagesthat acknowledge respond to the fetus do not all need to focus on the metaphysical or ontological aspects of pregnancy.We might try for images that draw attentionto the medicalrisks of pregnancycomparedwith those for an early, medicallysupervisedabortion.How many women still die from complicationsor have lastinghealth problemsdue to pregnancy-related pregnancy,let alone bad abortions,a fact that could highlightone reaWe son why pregnancyshould remain a choice.49 might also look for that draw attention to the moral issues raised by pregnancy, images such as the conditionsthat do or do not obligate someone to give lifesaving aid for the sake of another'slife. For instance, LucyLipparddiscusses three BarbaraKrugerposters, each featuring a pregnant man behind a "help" banner,with a captionthat indicatesthe opportunities or living standardthe man would have to sacrificeif he continues the pregnancy.The posters challengeviewersto considerwhetherthey have the same moralexpectationsof men as they do of women.50 In addition,we mighttry to highlightthe moralhypocrisyof abortion violence opponentswith images that depict their use of life-threatening or that depict their lack of politicalsupportfor health or social services for poor children.5' themselvesthe rescuersof children,we Proclaiming know that abortionopponents tend to be intolerantand uncharitable, and some are dangerousextremists.Perhapswe can publicizenegative images of clinic terrorists, similar to the images that queer and antiIn racism activistshave capturedof neo-Nazis or skinheads.52 the same vein, Lipparddescribes an art installationby the artists Suzi Kerrand Dianne Malley,calledHereticalBodies (1989), that "juxtaposed Operation Rescue leader RandallTerry'swritings with the fifteenth-century This witch hunter'sbible, the MalleusMaleficarum."53 installationdrew attentionto the fanaticismof clinic protesters.The GuerillaGirlshave a who oppose choice but poster that depicts the hypocrisyof Republicans
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who remainsilent on breastimplants,face lifts, and the numerousother ways that women controltheir bodies for male pleasure.4Manyof their posters aim to expose the discriminationwomen artists face and use a simple, bold display of a few statistics to reflect,for example, how few women artists have work on display in major museums. Perhaps we should try a bold presentation of the numbers of women who suffer medical problems with pregnancy, or of maps of the United States matchingstates with the most restrictiveabortionlaws with those that have the least adequateservices for children at risk, a correlationthat Jean Schroedelhas recentlydemonstrated.55 famous poster "Your BarbaraKruger's Body Is a Battleground" suggests that different groups are fighting for the right to control our In bodies.56 an individualisticculture,the poster may elicit a "leaveme alone"response.To createmore images like these, aimed particularly at young women, the Pro-ChoicePublic EducationProject,a coalition of "pro-choice" groups,recentlyhired a MadisonAvenuefirm.The firm dea series of Kruger-like images, some of which have appearedin signed One Ms. magazine.57 poster says, "WhenYourRightto a Safe and Legal AbortionIs FinallyTakenAway,WhatAre You Goingto Do?"with the curvedtop of a wire coat hangerin the place of the question mark.Another posteruses a large-nosed,nerdy-looking to horrifyyoung,hetguy erosexualfemale viewers about having the choices we take for granted taken away (fig. 6). Unfortunately,the poster does this in a way that mocks men who do not conformto our society'sstandardsof male attractiveness.A third poster directlyparodies Kruger's, with the pierced face of a young woman looking into the cameraand the caption "Think You CanDo Whatever YouWantwith YourBody?ThinkAgain." more A but complex, image that highlightsthe forces contendingfor powerful, control over women's bodies can be found in a painting by the artist Ilona Granet, A Womb of My Own (fig. 7). In this image, women's wombs are treatedas governmentproperty,which calls attentionto the totalitarian possibilitiesof "pro-life" objectives.Reproductive rightsproponents should consider developing variations on this painting, for example, showing prostrate women's bodies impregnated with other symbolsof state power:flags, armies,territories,and so on. Perhapsthe common image of "UncleSam Wants You"could be enlisted to show how pregnancyinvolves a form of social service and self-sacrifice,as in Uncle Sam wants you to lend this embryoyour uterus,heart,lungs, kidneys, and so on. One of the images in Lisa Link'sWarningsseries highchoices by suplights how the governmentlimits women'sreproductive abouthealthcare. The image,Self-Portraitwith Supressinginformation preme Court(1992), featuresthe artistwith the courtjustices underthe coversof her bed, while she holds in her hands a booktitled "Gag Rule."58 Althoughwe should avoid images of pregnancythat purportto get at "thetruth"of it, we can develop tools for undercuttingthe pretense of
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PublicEducationProject. Fig. 6. Posterfromthe Pro-Choice <http://www.protectchoice.org/pepmedia2.html>.
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fromthe catalogof OriginalSin exhibit, Fig. 7. Ilona Granet,"AWombof MyOwn," 16 Jan.-3 Mar.1991,HillwoodArtMuseum,LongIslandUniversity.
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"pro-life" groups to possess this truth. For example, in response to the common "pro-life" abortion bumpersticker"It'sa Child,not a Choice," defendersmightissue a bumperstickerthat simplysays, "It'snot a Child, It's a PregnantWoman." should create slogans that have the ring of We obviousness or truth so that "ourtruths" will sit somewhat uncomwith the "truths" such as "WARNfortably producedby anti-abortionists, ING: Pregnancy can be hazardous to your health" (see fig. 8). Also,
.I IWARNING: ABORTION MAY BE .-HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.

Bw,' '
r 'TU i-KINGS lr EI IFuu
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732-S06
Fig. 8. Billboard next to the 5 Freeway, California. Photo by Wynne Furth, May 2000.
images that challengethe pro-life'sreductionof personsto unique chromosomal recipes are needed. An image that reflects this approach is the whichappeared to KathyHigh's"Follow Chromosomes FindWaldo," in the summer 1997 issue of Feminist Studies (p. 316). High's image on "Trangenic Fantascope," the coverof the same issue, exploresthe borders of the concepts "human," and "person" juxtaposing "animal," by fetal humans and fetal animals.Giventhe resemblancesbetween different embryoniclife forms, if humans are special then it must be due to something other than the human body. Sarah Franklin describes an installation planned by the artist Helen Chadwickthat was to include of photographs fetal specimensof "[a]horse, a hedgehog,a chimpanzee, a sloth, a pigmy,and a one-eyedboy ... to be used as statuaryemblems A boundaries."59paintingby the artistSue Coe, exploringhuman-animal the relationshipsbetween fetal animals and humans. similarlyexplores Such images,of course,could suggestthat we need to have more respect for animal life-a message understood by some of the animal rights activistswritingin an issue of Animals'Agendathat featuresCoe'spainting on the cover(fig.9). For other possibilities,we can look to the work of some sex workerart politicalactivistswho use performance to promotea woman'srightto controland markether body. CarolLeigh,a sex workerand filmmaker in street perform-ins" which (a.k.a. ScarlotHarlot),conducts "guerrilla she challengespublicperceptionsof sex workersas criminalsor as "bad women."ShannonBell recounts:"Scarlot held publicsolicitationsin has downtownareasat peak pedestrianhours, most famouslyher 1990 busy public solicitationon Wall Street at lunch time. Leighuses this tactic of guerrillastreet theaterto protest the solicitinglaws and call for the decriminalization prostitution. of Dressedin her Americanflag gown, Scarlot informsthe crowd:'I providesafe sex for sale and I am offeringinter-
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jj(c'
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.-^^^^^^^^
a.
*-
, !lA iil'lSllll
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Fig. 9. Sue Coe, cover of Animals'Agenda, May/June 1998.
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coursewith a condomfor $200.... I have ultimatejurisdictionover my body...." In this performance,Leigh implicitly links decriminalizing abortion,as she does in her Madonna prostitutionwith decriminalizing Don'tPreach,I'm Terminating Pregnancy." My Manysex parody,"Pope and legal sex workas linked,for both concern workerssee legal abortion the right of women to use their bodies and sexual capacitiesfor nonreor Leighwill stage a demonstration "perproductive purposes.Typically, then film it to producea "guerrilla film,"and subform-in," documentary By piece.60 docusequentlyuse the film as part of anotherperformance menting the real via its performance,Leigh exposes the socially constructednatureof the real. movementhas Withthe cooperationof the mass media,the "pro-life" accomplishedsomethingsimilar.Activistscreatedramaticimages of life and death beforebirth,which they displayin acts of protest or civil disobedienceat the entrancesto abortionclinics-images that then recirculate in newspaperstories about failed "rescuemissions"when the protesters are arrested.Readersof the stories mightwonderwhy these people were arrested for trying to rescue babies like the ones in their posters. Peggy Phelan comparesclinic protests to performanceart and states: "Themembers of Operation Rescue shrewdly understand the of necessaryrequirements makinga spectacleand actingout for the sake of publicity.... These rescuestend to be emotionallyand often physically violent. Likemost staged rescues,OperationRescue'sdemonstrations generate a feeling of terror and thereby produce the feeling that one needs to be saved."6' continuallygaining the attention of the press, By anti-abortion capturethe public'simagination.For a brief performances a group of abortionrights activiststook up this strategy.Brett moment, Harveydescribes an action by a group called No More Nice Girls that aimed to "createa vivid, outrageousand highly visible presence."The group would show up at abortion rights rallies "[b]arefoot,chained together,and wearingvoluminousblackmaternitygarments... accompanied by other members of the group wearing black jumpsuits and shockingpink headbands("commandettes"), carryinga huge pink banner which read, 'Forced childbearing is a form of slavery.'"6 On one oc-
casion, their performancewas caught and projectedby the cameras of Life magazine(fig. 10). Another performance artist, the "Post-Porn Modernist" Annie and Sprinkle,performs"APublicCervix" invites her audiencemembers to view her private parts. These spectatorstake turns holding a flashlight and gazingat her cervix,afterSprinkleinserts a speculumto facilitate their viewing. Sprinklethen converses with each spectator about "thebeauty of the cervix; intermittentlyshe encouragesthe voyeur to describewhat she or he sees."63 exposingherselfin this way, Sprinkle By offers an interesting defense of pornography.Her performanceshows that makingvisible what is normallyconcealedin a woman'sbody can
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both deepen our apprecia_I^^^^^^^ purptionthe thing exposed p for Fig. Fgm and generate disgust. Conse_ 10.__ll en'sJ sexual_ aquently, Sprinkle's publiccer,~ vix interrogatesviewers'attito the pleasures of exand then - ~tudes posing the normally unseen tk and, especially,to the graphic _ _ \R _ representational practices that make (i.e., pornography) such viewing possible. Note that, in her performance, Sprinkle chose to facilitate the publicviewing of the cernot by showing abstract shots, or free-Vioavix, ultrasoundphotos or medical but illustrations, by providing view"of the real a "bird's-eye thing. This is what pornogra^
Fig. lo. FromLife magazine,November1981.
phy purportsto do with respt bothto sex a to wmspectbothto sexandto wom-
en's sexual anatomy. Sprinkle'sperformancechallenges pornography makes perverseand ugly what, opponentswho allege that pornography in its proper secrecy, is natural and beautiful. By exposing her cervix, that such exposuresneed not degradethe origiand then demonstrating nal while offeringpleasurableforms of spectatorship,Sprinkleoffers a to counterexample a common critiqueof sexuallyexplicitmaterials. Also note that Sprinklemanagesto facilitatethe viewing of her cervix without visuallyseparatingor disconnectingit from her body. Her performance does not provide the viewer with decontexualized "cervix shots" or free-floatingcervix images; instead, her viewer must interact In with her and her body to see a cervix.64 her performance,she helps the viewer experience the cervix as beautiful and enjoyable and she guides or controls the technologyfor viewing-the speculum. Her performance piece recalls feminist health training sessions in which a woman is offered a speculumto look at her cervix and thus usurp the authorityof male doctorswho enjoy privilegedaccess to the speculum. Sprinkletakes this exercise a step furtherby activelyinviting others to join her in viewingher cervixand, in doing so, takes chargeof how and by whom her body is to be viewed,enjoyed,and understood. performancemay give us a way to think about reattaching Sprinkle's the fetus to a woman'sbody and to interrogatethe fetal voyeurismof the "pro-life"movement. Her work is helpful because, in producing her Sprinkledoes not allow herself to be objectifiedor "post-pornography," eclipsed by her cervix. The viewer who wants to enjoy her cervix will
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find it difficultto degradethe woman to whom it belongs while viewing it, unlike the viewers who enjoy conventionalpornographicimages, or even disconnected fetal shots. Indeed, these latter images, mass-produced by conservative Christian "pro-life"groups, follow closely the which Sprinkleis also challengconventionsof traditionalpornography, have ing as she defendsthe use of porn. Feministcriticsof pornography pointed out that porn tends to reduce sex to penetration and male orgasm-and to reduce sexual women to their sexed body parts. In a with the similarway, the free-floatingfetus motif conflatesreproduction fetal body and its transformations, implicitlytreatingwomen'sbodies as insignificantand replaceablecontainers.Annie Sprinkle'spost-pornogfascinationwith raphy defends porn, but it mocks the pornographer's women's sexual parts and his desire for more intimate exposures. Somewhat humorously, she provides her audience a closer close-up than traditionalporn has managed.Althoughthis close-up shot is sympathetic to the viewer'sdesire to see the yet unseen, it does not let this desire overwhelmor push aside women'sbodies. My analysis of Sprinkleleads to the following question: Can reproto ductive rights proponentsmove beyond "pro-life" pornography postof reproduction?These representations pornographicrepresentations would expose the trulyperverseaspects of free-floatingfetuses and offer in less degradingrepresentationsof reproduction their place. We might start with parodicreproductiveimagerythat would draw criticalattention to what the "pro-life"movement does with its visual exposures, much like Sprinkle'sparodicperformancesdraw attention to what the movepornographerdoes with his (or hers). One thing the "pro-life" ment is doing is using exposuresof fetuses to convinceus that two separate individualsexist in one body from the moment of conception.To drawattentionto this aspect of their imagery,we can createimages that parodythis view of human generation.How long does it take for one to equaltwo: an instant, a few days, or a few months? To highlight the extent to which culture ratherthan nature plays a role in the onset of personhood,we might borrowpop-culturalimages of women'sbodies ratherthan clinicalor scientific-looking illustrations. Onevery popular,nonrealist,icon of the femininebody is, of course,the Barbiedoll. Althoughthe promotion of Barbie'sbody has often been a source of oppressionfor women, recentlysome activistshave appropriated it for subversive purposes. For example, a recent book, Barbie A Unbound: Parody of Barbie Obsession,65 features Barbieart to offer feminist lessons about sex, drugs, and HIV, among other things. A rash of guerrillaInternetsites now advertisea varietyof unorthodoxBarbies, including: Pregnant Teen Barbie, Back Alley Abortion Barbie (comes with coat hanger), and Our Barbies, Ourselves ("Anatomically correct Barbie,both inside and out, comes with spreadablelegs, her own speculum, magnifyingglass, and detailed diagramsof female anatomy ... so
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pull back leaf and you have two Barbies instead of one!
Fig. 11. "Post-Porn Barbie 1." Photo by the author, 1999.
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that little girls can learn about their bodies in a friendly,non-threatening way. Also included,... contraceptives,sex toys, expandinguterus with fetus at various stages of development... underscoringthat each young woman has the right to choose what she does with her own Barbie.Her invenThe Barbie").66 last Barbieis a kind of "pro-choice" tion raises the following question: Can we transform Our Barbie, Ourselvesinto Post-PornReproductive Barbie? Post-Porn ReproductiveBarbie would come with a nondetachable Fetal Barbieinside her. To view Fetal Barbie,owners press the internal flashlight mechanism to make Fetal Barbievisible inside big Barbie's womb (fig. 11).Another Post-Porn Barbie,BreederBarbie,would feature the proverbialleaf-over-crotch image. The instructionsread: "pull back the leaf and you'll see that Barbieis really two Barbies,not one! fetus, Fetal Barbiemight fail to (fig. 12). However,unlike the "pro-life" convince viewers that there is actually another tiny Barbie inside grown-up Barbie (what fool would pay double for this doll?). Such fetus is images may encourageviewers to reflect on how the "pro-life" better groomed for sentimentalvalue and stardom or, in other words, fetus is what Duden calls a "managedimage."67We how the "pro-life" can also introduceMass-MediaBarbie,who publicizesthe medicalrisks of pregnancy and the need for reliable and affordable contraception (fig. 13), or UltrasoundBarbie,who allows viewersto exploretheir perverse desire to see the normally unseen (fig. 14).68The purpose of these
movement'sintense interimages is to draw attention to the "pro-life" est in the fetus, and activists'use of the maturefetus to promote excessive social control over women's pregnant bodies. By replacing the mature fetus with a younger one that resides in the body of a cultural icon, this postpornographic image aims to redirectthe public'spornographicimaginationstoward differentends. And because Fetal Barbie is less easy to personifythan Barbieherself, these images of reproducing Barbiesmay challengethe idea that two separatedolls exist in one Barbiefromthe moment of conception. the Post-Porn-Modernists might also consider appropriating "managed fetus"for subversivepurposes.Althoughthis strangeand fantastic image (to recall Hartouni)usually wears an anti-abortionmessage, we can changeits verbalgarments.For instance, a poster might exploitthe public'sinterest in fetuses to promote universalhealthcare.The image and text would draw attentionto the hypocrisyof many "pro-life" proponents who advocatestate protectionfor fetuses while remainingindifferent to pregnant women who have no health insurance (fig. 15). Such posters might be jarring and confusing. They seduce their audiences with the attractiveand familiarfetus photos and then projectan unexpected message-a progressivepolitical proposal that will put the forces on the defensive.Anotherposter generallyantiwelfare"pro-life" in this vein might parody the "pro-life" slogan "Abortion Is Child
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Abuse,"as well as pro-lifers'use of the phrase "unborncitizen,"by conjoining the familiar fetus with a caption such as "Homelessness Is CitizenAbuse."The prevalenceof such images would serve to decouple the fetus from its anti-abortion meanings, requiring viewers of this image to readfor new meanings. The visual tools I've describedin this article need to be continually adapted to new developments in the public debate over abortion. As work show, this movement some of my earlier examples of "pro-life" has found tools other than scientificimageryto convinceus that fetuses are a misunderstood and oppressed social group. Increasingly, antiabortion forces are using compositions with multiple images to link abortionwith known cases of human genocide and ultimatelyto establish guilt by association.69 some web sites, for example, one finds On of aborted fetuses juxtaposed with historic photos of mass photos gravesof Nazi victims.Web sites offer , ..an"American-NaziWar Memorial" ^y^l _-^ or an "American Holocaust MemoriA'........... - )^_al" arP'+;:; featuringimages of "intolerance": :; ,.~ -l^'l _^1~ Ethe mangledbodies of victims of irrational hatreds.7" These photo compositions not only comparevictims but implicitly they also liken the perpei tratorsof these killings:gynecologists who offer women abortion services are comparedwith Nazi doctors and executioners. The "GenocideAware;. ^ iness Project"(see fig. 3) features triby 1999. Fig15 Photo theauthor, partite posters with titles such as "The
ChangingFace of Choice:ReligiousChoice,RacialChoice,Reproductive Choice," "Can You Connect the Dots: Extermination, Lynching, "TheFinal Solution,Separate Unwhite,Unborn," Abortion," "Ungentile, Each Planned Parenthood."71 and but Equal,Pro-Choice," "S.S.,K.K.K., containsthree photos: a victim of the Nazi holocaust,a victim of poster anti-Blacklynchingsin the United States, and an abortedfetus. To respond to the analogicalargumentsthat these compositions make will probablytake a differenttype of visual than the ones I have considered. Forinstance,we can createour own analogieswith photo montagesthat link the recent clinic bombings with other terroristattacks-such as on the WorldTradeCenteror the federalbuildingin Oklahoma.Suchvisual compositionswould attemptto point out the similaritiesthat exist between the extremist notions and tactics of some fundamentalist"prolife"groups and those of other domestic or internationalterroristorganizations.
Anotherapproachis to offer peaceful,nonviolentimages in response to violent ones. For example, we can focus on the socially cooperative
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aspects of planned pregnanciesby composingcheerfulimages of women surrounded their families,containingcaptionssuch as "ByHaving by an Abortionat Age Twenty,I Was Able to PostponeCreatingMy Family These images would attempt to Until I Was Ready and Prepared."72 equate abortionwith the exercise of women's positive agency-agency that leads to happy and productivewomen, and well-caredfor children. In otherwords,ratherthan respondto the visual miseryof abortionfoes with a different kind of misery-the misery of neglected children or exploited women, as Lippardsuggests, or the misery of the victims of extremist violence-we might respond with positive pictures of happy and productivelives enabledby the availabilityof birth controlswhich includeearlyabortion. Feminist art often features graphic violence, much like the art of abortionfoes. For example,Sue Coe'sart aboutthe meat industryoffers Her animal horrific images of slaughterhouses and animal victims.73 featurebabyfarmanimalspre- and postslaughter, simirightspaintings movement.Kruger's '"Your lar to the fetus photos of the "pro-life" Body Is a Battleground" poster,althoughnot gruesome,invokesmetaphorsof war and violence. And, of course,the coat hanger in all its variouspermutations invokes the horrors of back-alley abortions. Recently, the artist Dorothy Jiji attempted to (literally) bury the coat "pro-choice" with an installationthat includeda casketon top of a gravewith hanger
a tombstone inscription, "Hanger Died June 2 1999." The symbol she
proposes substitutingfor the hanger featuresa capitalC (for choice) in I the middle of a bright,blood red, circle.74 am quite sympatheticto the choice need to bury the coat hanger;however,associatingreproductive with blood and burialsites may reinforceratherthan challengethe idea that abortionis evil. Perhapspoliticalart needs to be shockingin order to have an impact on public opinion. In this regard,much feminist and art "pro-life" obey the same genre conventions.This isn't a bad thing; we just need to appreciatehow these conventionswork, as well as the varietyof visual and narrativegenres, so we can use them more effectively. Furthermore,for political purposes, we need to move feminist reproductiverights art out of journals and museums and into newspapers, bus terminals,the Internet,film, and TV.7 As I concludethis article,I should note that the reproductiverights movementhas recentlygeneratedsome effectivesongs about clinic violence and the murderof abortionproviders,as well as moving,thoughtYet ful ballads about women who have died from illegal abortions.76 feminist analyses of the tools of the "pro-life" movement demonstrate the need for a stronger"visibility politics,"a politics that engagesvisual and narrativemedia to broadcastideas. I agree with LyndaHart, who introduced this term and who states: "It is time perhaps to rethink Audre Lorde'smantrafor feminist praxis, 'the master'stools will never dismantlethe master'shouse.'""In this article,I am essentiallyencour-
Laurie Shrage
89
aging feminists to take up our opponents'tools and fight back. By enand gagingin a politics of imagery,performance, visibility,and by using visual and narrativeart forms to highlightaspects of abortionthat make its practice acceptable,the movement for reproductiverights can succeed in both culturaland legal battlefields.
NOTES I would like to thank the StanfordHumanitiesCenterfor providingme with a place to work and a stimulatinggroup of colleagueswhile I was completingthe researchfor this article.I would also like to thank the Feminist Studies editors and consultantsfor their helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this article. In addition, I am grateful to Rita Manning and her colleagues at San Jose State University, Lanier Anderson and the StanfordResponsibilityReading Group,Julie Van Campand the Southern California PhilosophyConference,and MaureenBurtonand the Cal Poly Women'sFacultyAssociation for providing me with audiences to test out some of the ideas in this article. Linda LeMoncheck, Hilde Nelson, MarthaNussbaum, KayleyVernalis,and Dan Segal all providedinsightfulcommentson earlierdraftsof this essay. 1. Tom Lehrer,"TheFolk Song Army,"That Was the Year That Was, RepriseRecords, recorded1965. in 2. The music groupDigablePlanetsrefersto clinic protestersas "fascists" their song, "LaFemme Fetal,"one of the few recent, popular pro-choice songs: "[T]hepro-lifers harassme outsidethe clinic,call me a murderer... hey beautifulbird,I said, diggingher sombermood, the fascists are some heavydudes,they don'treallygive a damnaboutlife, they just don't want a woman to controlher body or have the right to choose ... firebombing clinics, what type of shit is that, Orwellianin fact, if Roe v. Wade was over turned,would not the desire remainintact, leavingyoung girls to risk their health, doctors to botch and watch as they kill themselves, now I hate to sound macabre,but heh isn't it my job to lay it on the masses, and get them off their asses, to fight againstthese fascists ..." OnReachin'(ANew Refutationof Timeand Space), CapitolRecords,1993. 3. Some of the best-knownsongs are: "TheUnseen"by the Geto Boys (on UncutDope, PriorityRecords,1992), "ToZion"by LaurynHill (on TheMiseducationof LaurynHill, Ruff House/Columbia,1998), "Retrospect Life"by CommonSense (on OneDay It'll for All Make Sense, RelativityRecords,1997), "Abortion a Crime" Alpha Blondyand Is by the Solar System (on Dieu, World Pacific/Capitol,1994), "Abortion" Yellowman(on by Freedomof Speech,RASRecords,1997), "Abortion" Doug E. Freshand the Get Fresh by Crew(on Louder Than a Bomb, Rhino EntertainmentCo., 1999). I am gratefulto my studentJamaarBoydfor alertingme to some of this music aboutabortion. video, The Silent Scream, see Rosalind Pollack 4. For a discussion of the "pro-life" Petchesky,"FetalImages:The Powerof Visual Culturein the Politics of Reproduction," Feminist Studies 13 (summer 1987): 265-71. For discussions of fetal images in popular Fetuses: Abortion, Disarmament,and the Sexofilms, see Zoe Sofia, "Exterminating Semiotics of Extraterrestrialism," Diacritics 14 (summer 1984): 47-59; and Lauren Berlant,"America, the Fetus,"Boundary2 21 (fall 1994): 145-95. Fat, Plea 5. A San Jose MercuryNews story on 25 Apr. 1999 (p. 7A), titled "Anti-abortion whichwas creatTargetsYoungAdults,"describesa new activistgroupcalled Survivors, ed by OperationRescue activistsin orderto attractthose born afterRoe v Wade to the movement. "pro-life" 6. For example,see <http://www.lancasterlife.com/> Oct. 2001). (29 7. I am gratefulto Peter Ross for bringingthe photographin figure 2 to my attention.
90
Laurie Shrage
For more signs by the "Genocide AwarenessProject," to <http://www.cbrinfo.org/ go gap.html>. 8. See <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/9699/art.html> and <http://www.
geocities.com/Athens/Styx/9699/> (29 Oct. 2001).
9. Rosalind Pollack Petchesky,Abortion and Woman'sChoice: The State, Sexuality, and Reproductive Freedom, rev. ed. (1984; Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990). Also, see Petchesky,"Fetal Images,"264. o1. Petchesky, Abortionand Woman'sChoice,esp. xi and 338-42. 11. Ibid.,xiv, and Petchesky,"FetalImages,"264. Abortionand Woman'sChoice,x. 12. Petchesky, 13. Petchesky"FetalImages,"287. 14. LucyLippard,The Pink Glass Swan: SelectedEssays on FeministArt (New York:
The New Press, 1995), 249-50.
15. Petchesky,"FetalImages,"264. 16. The Science and Technology Subgroup,"In the Wake of the Alton Bill: Science, Politics"in Off-Centre: Feminism and CulturalStudies, Technology,and Reproductive ed. Sarah Franklin, Celia Lury, and Jackie Stacy (London: HarperCollinsAcademic,
1991), 147, 215.
17. Althoughsympatheticto the ultimate aims of "pro-choice" groups, other feminists have critiqued their political and rhetorical strategies. See especially, Kathy Rudy, BeyondPro-Lifeand Pro-Choice(Boston:BeaconPress, 1996), chap.4.
18. The Science and Technology Subgroup, 191, 200, 203, 189.
19. Valerie Hartouni, Cultural Conceptions: On Reproductive Technologies and the Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1997). Remakingof Life (Minneapolis: 20. Ibid., 34-35. Petcheskyin "FetalImages"(264) notes the prevalenceof fetal images that "floatlike spirits"in courtrooms, hospitals,bus terminals,and so on. 21. Petchesky, "FetalImages,"268, 271-86. See also "Joanneand Susan"in Barbara Duden, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn (Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, 1993), 30-33; and MonicaCaspar,TheMaking of the N.J.: RutgersUniversityPress, 1998). UnbornPatient (New Brunswick,
22. Hartouni, 24, 67.
23. See Eileen McDonagh,Breaking the Abortion Deadlock:From Choiceto Consent (NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress, 1996). 24. Karen Newman, Fetal Positions: Individualism, Science, Visuality (Stanford: StanfordUniversityPress, 1996), 26. Art Stafford,Imaging the Unseen in Enlightenment and 25. Ibid., 27. See also Barbara
Medicine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 240-48.
26. BarbaraDuden, "TheFetus on the 'FartherShore,'"in Fetal Subjects, Feminist Positions, ed. Lynn Morgan and Meredith Michaels (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 21.
27. Newman, lno. See also Janelle Taylor,"ThePublicFetus and the FamilyCar:From in AbortionPoliticsto a VolvoAdvertisement," PublicCulture4 (spring1992):75-76.
28. Newman, 110-13.
29. MeredithMichaelsstates: "Inthe contextof contentionsover abortion,the question is: who is more real, women or fetuses? The feminist reproductiverights movement couldbe viewedas an effortto elevatewomen'sontologicalrankingby recastingthem as agents capable of choice." See Meredith Michaels, "FetalGalaxies: Some Questions aboutWhatWe See,"in Fetal Subjects,FeministPositions, 117. 30. I am gratefulto KarenBaradfor calling my attention to three-dimensionalultraultrasound and its possible impacton the abortiondebate.To view three-dimensional sound fetal images, Baradsuggests doing a searchon the Internetfor "three-dimensional ultrasound."A site that I found by doing this is <http://www.fetus.com/3DUS2. html> (29 Oct. 2001). Also, see Barad's"Getting Real:Technoscientific Practicesand the
Materialization of Reality," Differences 10 (summer 1998): 87-128.
Laurie Shrage
91
31. Lynn Morgan, "Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy: An Anthropological Critique," Hypatia 11(summer1996): 63. 32. I'm drawinginspirationhere fromJudith Butler'ssuggestionsabouthow to denaturalizegender. 33. Lisa M. Mitchell and Eugenia Georges, "Cross-CulturalCyborgs: Greek and CanadianWomen's Discourses on Fetal Ultrasound,"Feminist Studies 23 (summer
1997): 397.
Sees AbortionWarTurnViolent, ServicesFall,"New York 34. James Brooke,"Canada

Times, 16 July 2000.
35. Jana Sawicki,Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power, and the Body (New York:
Routledge, 1991), 89.
Obstetrical Ultrasoundin AmericanCul36. Janelle S. Taylor,"Imageof Contradiction: ture,"in ReproducingReproduction:Kinship,Power, and TechnologicalInnovation, ed. SarahFranklinand Helena Ragone(Philadelphia: Universityof PennsylvaniaPress,
1998), 15-45. 37. Ibid., 21.
38. See Bruno Latour, "Visualizationand Cognition," in Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of CulturePast and Present, vol. 6, ed. HenrikaKuklickand Conn.:JAI Press, 1986), 1-40. Also, Newman,7-8. ElizabethLong(Greenwich, 39. Latour,14.
40. Michaels, "Fetal Galaxies," 119. 41. Duden, Disembodying Women, 25, 17.
42. Faye Ginsburg,ContestedLives: TheAbortionDebate in an American Community Press, 1989), 104. (Berkeley: Universityof California 43. Latour,17.Accordingto CelesteCondit,"Inthe earlyperiod of the controversyadvocates broughtpickledfetuses in jars to legislativehearings.In the middleperiodpackets of photographspresentedthe image. In the later period the photographswere more widelydisseminatedin mass media and on billboards...." See CelesteCondit,Decoding AbortionRhetoric:Communicating Social Change(Urbana:Universityof Illinois Press,
1990), 82.
44. In the course of writing this article, this controversialsite has moved around the Internet.See <http://www.christiangallery.com/atrocity> Jan. 2002). (10 45. Latour,18. film by Jane Gillooly,New Day Films, 1994. A 46. Leona'sSister Gerri,a documentary less sensational,althoughequallyemotional,approachthat uses a dead woman image is a poster in the archivesof the Centerfor the Studyof PoliticalGraphics,LosAngeles.In a child'shandwritingare the words:"MyMom Had an IllegalAbortion/IDon'tMiss the Baby/I Miss My Mom,"with a child's drawingof a woman'sface at the bottom of the poster. 47. See Carol Stabile, Feminism and the TechnologicalFix (Manchester,U.K.: ManchesterUniversityPress, 1994), 94. 48. Linda L. Layne, "Breakingthe Silence: An Agenda for a Feminist Discourse of
Pregnancy Loss," Feminist Studies 23 (summer 1997): 305.
49. Accordingto AndrzejKulczycki,in developing countries, "Therisk of death from childbirthis at least 11times higher, and 30 times higher than for abortionsup to eight weeks of gestation."See AndrzejKulczycki,TheAbortion Debate in the WorldArena
(New York: Routledge, 1999), 5. 50. Lippard, 251.
51. See Jean Reith Schroedel'sIs the Fetus a Person?A Comparisonof Policies across the Fifty States (Ithaca,N.Y.:CornellUniversityPress, 2000). 52. I am gratefulto Jennifer Summit for this suggestion about publicizingimages of clinicterrorists.
53. Lippard, 250.
54. Their posters can be viewed at: <http://www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/poster_
92
Laurie Shrage
Girls Demand a index.html> (29 Oct. 2001). Another of their posters says: "Guerrilla Returnto Traditional Valueson Abortion:Beforethe Mid-Nineteenth Abortion Century, in the First Few Months of PregnancyWas Legal. Even the CatholicChurchDid Not ForbidIt until 1869."This poster usefully points out that the CatholicChurchhas not always been opposed to all abortions. However, one might argue back that laws and moralitiesoften changeand sometimesfor the better,such as with slavery. Is 55. Schroedel's the Fetus a Person? MITPress, 1999), 62-63, 69, 117, 56. BarbaraKruger,Thinking of You (Cambridge:
242.
Ms., 57. "Lastpage," April/May1999. I am gratefulto Diana Lindenfor alertingme to this issue of Ms. These images can also be viewed at: <http://www.protectchoice. org/pepmedia2.html>. 58. Partsof this exhibit are on view at: <http://babel.massart.edu/-llink/html/exhibit Frame.html> (29 Oct. 2001). See also L.A. guerilla artist Robbie Conal's poster of Justice Rehnquistwith the caption "GagMe with a Coat Hanger"at: <http://secure. html> (29 Oct. 2001). This posterrecyclesthe coat labridge.com/msbooks/conal.gagme. for hangericon to protestthe SupremeCourt's"gagrule."I am gratefulto GailSansbury alertingme to Conal'swork. 59. Sarah Franklin, "Dead Embryos: Feminism in Suspension," in Fetal Subjects, FeministPositions, 73. 60. ShannonBell,Reading, Writing,and Rewritingthe ProstituteBody (Bloomington: IndianaUniversityPress, 1994), 176, 177.For more informationon CarolLeigh'sfilms, see <http://www.bayswan.org/Scarlot_Videos.html>. in Men and Pregnancy: 61. PeggyPhelan,"White Discoveringthe Bodyto Be Rescued," Acting Out: Feminist Performances, ed. Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan (Ann Arbor: Universityof MichiganPress, 1993), 383-84. 62. Brett Harvey,"No More Nice Girls,"in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality,ed. CarolVance(London:PandoraPress, 1989), 206. otherfirst63. Bell, 152. Bell'sdescriptionof Sprinkle's performance aptlycharacterizes person accounts I've heard. Unfortunately,I have never attended one of these performances. My reading of this performancepiece is somewhat different from Bell's, although consistent with hers. See also Annie Sprinkle'sPost-PornModernist:My First CleisPress, 1998). Twenty-fiveYearsas a Multi-MediaWhore(San Francisco: shot":<http: 64. However,Sprinklenow has a web site, whereviewerscan see a "cervix (19 //www.gatesofheck.com/annie/gallery/cervixmain.html> Jan. 2002). Barbie Unbound:A Parody of Barbie Obsession(Norwich,Vt.: 65. SarahStrohmeyer, New VictoriaPublishers,1997). 66. See <http://funnies.paco.to/barbies.html>. Many of the sites I have visited since into 1998 no longer exist, althoughif you type "Barbie" Google,you will find new ones. The video, Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour, by Susan Stern (New Day Films, Barbies. 1998), featuressome "alternative" 67. Duden,DisembodyingWomen,17. 68. I createdthe images in figures 11through 14 with a scanner and simple computer graphicssoftware.I am not a graphicartistand these images are intendedto encourage otherswith moretalent to producenew reproductive rightsimagery. activistshave used these analogiesfor a while (e.g., see Condit, 69. Although"pro-life" n. 43 above),I'm not sure when the images I'm describingfirst began to appear,or how widelythey'reused. 70. See "Missionaries to the Unborn," at: <http://www.mttu.com/main.htm>; <http://www.mttu.com/memorial/index.html>;and <http://www.theKingsnetwork.
com/holocaust.html> (29 Oct. 2001).
71. See Center for Bio-Ethical Reform at: <http://www.cbrinfo.org/gap-signs.html>

(29 Oct. 2001).
72.
I am gratefulto NancyKolmanfor this suggestion.
Laurie Shrage
93
73. See Sue Coe,Dead Meat (New York:FourWallsEightWindows,1995). Choice:Obstaclesto Self Determination," curatedby SachikoOnishi, 74. "Reproductive includedthe installation"TheStoryof the Hanger," DorothyJiji, and was held at the by Art ResourcesTransferin New YorkCity,25 June to 27 Aug. 1999. 75. Iris Schilkehas informedme about an action started in Dresden, Germany,called "Mail-Art gegen den ? [this symbol refers to a paragraphnumberof a legal document] 218" (in 1993) that involvedwomen and men creating"pro-choice" postcards.She has verykindlymailed me a packetof these postcards,with an accompanying description(in German) of the project. This action suggests one relatively easy way to get feminist images into widercirculation. "HelloBirmingham" To the Teeth,RighteousBabe Records, (on 76. See Ani DiFranco's earlier"LostWomanSong"(on LikeI Said, RighteousBabe 1999). Also see, DiFranco's Records,1993), which reflects a woman'sthoughts as she seeks an abortion.For songs about women who died from illegal abortions,see CyndiLauper's"Sally's (on Pigeon's" Hat Full of Stars, Epic Records,1993) and Peggy Seeger's"Judge's Chair" An Odd (on Collection,RounderRecords,1996). in 77. LyndaHart,"Introduction," Acting Out,11.

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From Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Barbie: Post-Porn Modernism and Abortion Author(s): Laurie Shrage Source: Feminist Studies,

Fig. 1. Peter Frega, "TheAmericanHolocaust,"<http://www.frega.com/ bigholocaust.html>.

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Fig. 11. "Post-Porn Barbie 1." Photo by the author, 1999.

Fig. 12. "Post-Porn Barbie 2." Photo by the author, 1999.

Fig. 13. "Post-Porn Barbie 3." Photo by the author, 1999.

Fig. 14. "Post-Porn Barbie 4." Photo by the author, 1999.

Sees AbortionWarTurnViolent, ServicesFall,"New York 34. James Brooke,"Canada

54. Their posters can be viewed at: <http://www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/poster_

71. See Center for Bio-Ethical Reform at: <http://www.cbrinfo.org/gap-signs.html>

I am gratefulto NancyKolmanfor this suggestion.

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