Catriona Macleod: “Adolescence,” Pregnancy and Abortion: Constructing a Threat of Degneration

Abstract

In ‘‘Adolescence,’’ Pregnancy and Abortion, Catriona Macleod delves into the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy and how the public influences girls’ choices. Throughout, she references a Special Assignment television program that aired in South Africa. The program depicted four young girls going through the decision to get an abortion, which is legal up to 12 weeks without parental consent. The program represents what Macleod’s book is about: being pregnant with an unplanned child and the decision on how to proceed. Macleod looks at these issues in reference to how they are portrayed in society and the effects of these portrayals. Macleod presents the argument that the view of the public believes teenage pregnancy is contributing to deterioration at the societal level. Macleod opens the first chapter with the description of the Special Assignment program that was found on the TV station’s website. She then includes a transcript of the narration for a piece of the show, which illustrates who the program‘s audience is (those viewers who have no formed opinion on abortion) and the intentions (to make viewers think about the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act). Overall, chapter 1 functions as an introduction to the book, the content, and how the author approaches her research. Macleod looks at how public representations (journals, newspapers, websites, TV) shape the understandings of teenage pregnancy and abortion. She has decided to focus on how the young girls are depicted, rather than the girls themselves, in order to understand how the public perspective shapes the girls’ decisions when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. She also investigates how the girls are portrayed, which allows for exploring the principles that drive these young women to their decisions. Chapter 2 is dedicated to defining what society, and the world, believes an adolescent is and the history behind the term. Macleod presents evidence that adolescents are stuck in a kind of limbo between the child and adult world. She continues by noting that psychological research and adults share the belief that adolescents are in transition: mentally, physically, and emotionally. Macleod traces the historical invention of adolescence as an age group to Western societies in the early 1900s. The three ideas that brought about this age specific period are: focus put on the physicality of puberty, the emotional and social changes that corresponded with puberty, and the childhood impulses that had to compete with the obligatory maturity of adulthood. In response to these ideas, adulthood was pushed back, which allowed young adults the time to acclimate to the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood. Macleod presents evidence that the enactment of enforced schooling and child labor laws further supported the invention of an adolescence category. From the West, the idea of an ‘‘adolescence’’ category spread to other parts of the world. Next, Macleod looks at why adolescent pregnancy and abortion are considered degeneration. Macleod points to Stanley Hall’s theory that the prolonged wait for sexual intimacy in the teenage years led to a more civilized society. The argument states that promiscuity during adolescence would cause deterioration of society, that it would send it back to a primitive state. The ideal ending of adolescence had the flawless, white male as the model, which excluded females from the ideology. Macleod argues, ‘‘The threat of degeneration implicit in the discourse of ‘adolescence as transition’ is rendered more real by its complex association with femininity’’ (Macleod 2011, p. 27). This, in turn, shapes how women mature and B. Johann (&) Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA e-mail: bjohann@indiana.edu