Abortion is a contentious issue in social life but it has rarely been
subjected to careful scrutiny in the social sciences. While the
legalization of abortion has brought it into the public domain, it
still remains a sensitive topic in many cultures, often hidden from
view and rarely spoken about, consigned to a shadowy existence.
Drawing on reports gathered from hospital settings and in-depth
interviews with women who have had abortions, Luc Boltanski sets out
to explain the ambiguous status of this social practice. Abortion, he
argues, has to remain in the shadows, for it reveals a contradiction
at the heart of the social contract: the principle of the uniqueness
of beings conflicts with the postulate of their replaceable nature, a
postulate without which no society would achieve demographic renewal.
This leads Boltanski to explore the way human beings are engendered
and to analyze the symbolic constraints that preside over their entry
into society. What makes a human being is not the foetus as such,
ensconced within the body, but rather the process by which it is taken
up symbolically in speech - that is, its symbolic adoption. But this
symbolic adoption presupposes the possibility of discriminating among
embryos that are indistinguishable. For society, and sometimes for
individuals, the arbitrary character of this discrimination is hard to
tolerate. The contradiction is made bearable, Boltanski shows, by a
grammatical categorization: the “project” foetus - adopted by its
parents, who use speech to welcome the new being and give it a name -
is juxtaposed to the “tumoral” foetus, an accidental embryo that
will not be the object of a life-forming project. Bringing together
grammar, narrations of life experience and an historical perspective,
this highly original book sheds fresh light on a social phenomenon
that is widely practised but poorly understood.
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A Sociology of Engendering and Abortion
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780745683492
Publisert
2014
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Wiley Professional, Reference & Trade
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Antall sider
448
Forfatter