The Ideology of Choice: Abortion (Bio-)Politics, Prenatal Screenings and Women’s Liberation
The Ideology of Choice: Abortion (Bio-)Politics, Prenatal Screenings and Women’s Liberation

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I explore the borders of one’s autonomy and self by analysing contemporary feminist and other critical scholarships that problematize the concept of reproductive freedom articulated as an individual “right to choose.” The contemporary critical feminist scholarships disclose how class, age, racial status and (dis)ability greatly nuance the meaning of choice, dividing good mothers from those whose reproduction is deemed undesirable. In particular, the case of prenatal screenings highlights the limits to women’s freedoms set by the newly emerging reproductive technologies and medical/cultural discourses which imagine the production of a “perfect child” in a neoliberal context of choice. In this paper, I argue that reproductive freedom articulated as an individual right to choose is an ideological construct serving the purpose of white able-bodied supremacy that masks its interests to control women’s sexuality and reproduction under the veil of women’s liberation.

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