Aborting law: an exploration of the politics of motherhood and medicine

Abstract

In this thorough and challenging work, Kellough examines abortion issue within context of larger hegemonic legal and social discourse in our culture. She emphasizes that the relationship between legal and social codes is not dosed or one-way because each strand wntradicts and relies on other, and it is precisely because legal code interlocks with social code that law has ideological power in construction of inequality. Kellough argues that contemporary legal reasoning has not excluded women but has prrsupposcd their necessary contribution related to reproductive labour, defined as that produces human beings and human relationships, a labour that creates human value. Using Rawls' justice theory as a basis, Kellough outlines two types of rights in society: liberty (primary) rights and welfare (secondary) rights. Rawls' theory assumes autonomy of each independent member of society whose primary motivation is self-interest. This autonomous being has any and all rights of liberty until those rights come into conflict with another's liberty rights. Only then can state interfere to mediate andtor resolve conflict. Welfare rights are those which can be claimed by individuals who have somehow lost or are unable to achieve their full liberty rights. In this case aright to compensation (welfare) may be petitioned from state. According to Kellough, flaw in Rawls' theory is that he does not consider work necessary in creating, nurturing, and supporting this independent citizen. And, of course, this 'taken-forgranted labour is primarily done by women. Also, because this work requires suspension of self -interest '