Toward reproductive justice rhetorics of care: state senator Jen Jordan’s dissent of Georgia’s heartbeat bill

Abstract

ABSTRACT As we emerge into a post-Roe landscape spurred by state-level “heartbeat bills,” the stakes are high for rhetorical scholars to identify rhetorical topoi that have the capacity to intervene in legislative acts of reproductive injustice. Already, feminist rhetorical scholars have determined the rhetorical limits of topoi derived from legal, medical, and <choice> frameworks. Thus, I build upon Kelly Pender’s “rhetoric of care” to theorize what I name reproductive justice rhetorics of care, rhetorical topoi that can advance reproductive justice (RJ). Importantly, I view RJ as a contingent telos – not an analytic – to which both radical (protest) and reform (institutional) rhetoric can contribute. I argue that Georgia state Senator Jen Jordan’s dissent of HB 481, Georgia’s heartbeat bill, offers three RJ rhetorics of care from within the constraints of institutional dissent: women as the fiduciaries of life, reproduction as an embodied process, and mother – reclaimed and reframed. This analysis underscores the importance of identifying the rhetorical strategies invoked by state legislators to challenge reproductive injustice, given that abortion access will now be controlled by states post-Dobbs. Further, my analytical approach to finding topoi that move toward a contingent telos has implications for additional justice-oriented movements.