Gendered Citizenship: Women, Equality, and Abortion Policy

Abstract

Since the 1970s significant progress has been made in the area of women's rights, yet women lag behind men economically, politically, and socially. One reason for this persistent inequality between the sexes is that traditional gender attitudes regarding women's roles as wives and mothers compete with a definition of equality based on rights. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of abortion policy. From 1865 to 1965, women's access to abortion (with rare exceptions) was completely prohibited; over the past 35 years, abortion has become far more available, but continues to be restricted. Through an analysis of abortion policy from 1965 to 2000, this article identifies the way in which a politics of motherhood conflicts with women's rights to full citizenship. It shows how attitudes regarding women's competency, first written into abortion law in the 19th century, and gender assumptions about their status as citizens, have affected and informed the debate over abortion policy, and have, in effect, limited their ability to achieve equality of citizenship with men.