Abortion and the “Feminine Voice”

1. Abortion and the “Feminine Voice” Celia Wolf-Devine

2. Feminist Voice • Females have different traits that correspond to different, and sometimes superior ways of responding to moral issues. • These traits are labeled “feminine” but can be exhibited in males as well. • Some are natural and some are cultural (as well as a combination of both).

3. Feminine Voice • In short, feminism has strongly argued that women simply think different about moral issues than men, and this difference ought not be considered inferior.

4. Character Traits Feminine Masculine • Nonviolent • Nurturing • Caring • Relational • Egalitarian • Natural • Violent • Dominance/Control • “Rational” • Hierarchy • Power • Individualistic

5. Wolf-Devine’s Theses • 1)Abortion is a masculine response to an unwanted pregnancy. • 2) The “feminine voice” encourages an anti-abortion position or at least a very different response to an unwanted pregnancy.

6. I. Masculine vs. Feminine Voice 1. Moral Reasoning 2. Mind/Body 3. Nature 3. Social life

7. 1. Moral Reasoning • Girls are encouraged to form relationships while boys are encouraged into act of separation and detachment (independent and standing alone). • Boys play in larger groups and are more concerned with an abstract, general rules for determining justice and fairness. • Girls play in smaller groups and value more the friendships and relationships, as well as the needs of each for determining fairness and justice.

8. Feminine and Masculine Ethics • Feminine Ethics: emphasizes responsibility to care for others, sensitive to our interconnectedness, and strives to maintain relationships. • Masculine Ethics: speaks in terms of justice and rights, stresses consistency and principles, and stresses the autonomy of the individual and impartiality in one’s dealings with others.

9. 2. Mind/Body • Normative Dualism: there is a split between the mind/soul/spirit and nature/physical world/ body. • This view of the universe and reality is male biased and goes back to Plato and Aristotle. • This hierarchy favors a male ideology. • Even the conception of rationality is driven by male biases.

10. 3. Nature • The mind-body dualist view creates a paradigm that devalues nature and women. • Man transcends nature and is superior to it. • Nature is simply a thing, a tool, an instrument for man to USE for his purpose. • Religion and religious beliefs have added credibility to this narrative.

11. Ecofeminist • The Feminist view and the Ecological view have much in common. • First, they both consider the importance of relations. Ecologist view us and all of nature as intertwined in inseparable and interdependent living relations. • Feminists view the universe as primarily a network of relations and they emphasize the importance of relationships and interconnectedness.

12. Feminism and Ecology • Second, ecologist view a nature as consisting in an important egalitarian balance, giving intrinsic worth and value to all things. • Feminist view the human person as part of nature and not as a transcendent being that is superior to it.

13. 4. Social Life • The masculine paradigm of social life is centered around the notion of the individual (atomism). • This goes back to the central political theory constructed by males. These are the theories that have dominated all of Western thought. • Hobbes, Locke, Social Contract Theory and Rawl’s conception of justice in the 20th century. • These are all based on rights and the individual.

14. Feminist Paradigm • The feminist view begins not with the individual as a central point but as society consisting of a network of social relations. • We are born within a world of already-existing relationships that consists of caring for one another and having responsibilities toward one another.

15. Societal Rules • How society should be run and how conflicts should be resolved will differ greatly between the masculine and feminine paradigms. • Masculinity emphasizes, objectification, violence and competitiveness and Femininity emphasizes empathy, nurturance, and cooperation. • Males view social relations in terms of hierarchy, power, and domination, and females in terms of egalitarian, nonviolent.

16. II. Abortion • The view that abortion is morally permissible is inconsistent with a Feminist Morality of Caring. • The view that abortion is permissible is supported by a Masculine Morality of Violence, “discriminate, separate, and control.”

17. Abortion: Separation and Violence • Abortion is literally a violent separation that intentionally destroy another living organism through the use of force. • It is a form of violent domination and not a peaceful solution.

18. Abortion: Nature and Egalitarianism • Abortion does not respect the natural cycle, but rather disrupts it. • Abortion buts us in a transcendent positions as superior and above nature. • We use technology to manipulate nature to our goals, purposes and interest.

19. Abortion: Society • Abortion does not presume the relational situation espoused by feminist ethics. • Instead, it adopts a very individualistic, masculine perspective: “I have no responsibility or obligations to anyone unless I have willingly entered into such a contract.”

20. Abortion: Nurturing and Empathy • Abortion defenders emphasize the rights of the woman and do not consider as important or valuable the notion of empathy (the needs of others) or nurturing (the caring for others), which a feminist perspective does.

21. Some Replies: Feminism can be consistent with abortion • Denying women access to abortion is another form of male violence and male domination. • Rebuttal: Males are not the major proponents of anti-abortion policy and movement.

22. Replies- Feminism can be consistent with abortion • We have to balance care for others and care for oneself. Therefore, abortion can be viewed as a pregnant woman’s nurturing and caring attitude for herself. • Rebuttal: Abortion is not an act of caring or nurturing for the pregnant woman; on the contrary, abortion is a violent violation of oneself.

23. Feminism can be consistent with abortion • Abortion can viewed as an act that attempts to sustain healthy relationships, that otherwise would suffer and possibly dissolve, if the pregnant woman were to have the baby. • Rebuttal: preserving all existing relationships without equal consideration to establishing new ones is not a good view, and does not fulfill the spirit of the conception of caring about relationships. • “Thus the care perspective could degenerate into a rationalization for a purely tribal morality: I take care of myself and my friends.”

24. Feminism can be consistent with abortion • From a feminist perspective severing connections should be considered given the following criteria: • 1) Is the separation permanent or only temporary? • 2) Is the separation certain to happen? • 3) Will it cause harm? • 4) Is it justified (deserved)? • 5) Is the relationship special? • If we consider these criteria, it seems that abortion would hardly ever be justified because in an abortion the separation is certain, permanent, and extremely harmful. Moreover, the fetus is innocent and the fetus is a pregnant woman’s offspring.

25. Can Feminism Be Consistent with Abortion? • The only defense of the moral permissibility of abortion from the feminist voice is by showing that there is no morally significant relationship between the pregnant woman and the fetus. • However, the fetus has the potential to enter into a lasting and meaningful relationship with the pregnant woman, therefore, even if it cannot do so in the present is can do so in the future, just a comatose son or daughter who has a very good chance of recovering. • Therefore, the fetus does have a morally significant relationship with the pregnant woman.

26. Conclusion • Celia Wolf-Devine argues that under the feminist voice it would be challenging to justify the act of abortion as morally permissible. • Only through a masculine voice can abortion be defended. • Is it okay for woman to use and adopt the masculine voice just for this one issue? • The problem with this, according to Wolf-Divine, is that doing so would undermine and betray the virtues feminist value most and the virtues that they advance as the ones that should guide our actions and lives.