Body rights, social rights and the liberal welfare state

Abstract

The post-war expansion of many welfare states has seen 'reproduction going public', the development of social policies making reproduction a public and political concern. Though the phrase 'going public' has been applied most commonly to care work, it also describes the politi cisation of needs associated with biological reproduction. The present article is concerned with one such service, abortion, and what it can tell us about the development of the welfare state. The article focuses on a particular, 'liberal' type of the welfare state found in countries sharing the combined heritages of the British common law tradition and welfare residualism maintaining the primacy of market and family. This article explores the interplay of abortion rights, politics and services in the liberal welfare states of Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States. It considers the relationship between liberalism and gender, and the distinction between abortion as a medical entitle ment and a 'body right'. The civil right to an abortion is examined in the light of services supporting a social right to abortion services. The form these rights have taken, however, also appears to have been shaped by the ideologies and institutional forms of the broader social policy framework of the liberal welfare state.