The following papers—first delivered at the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 39 Spring Meeting, Reckoning/Foresight (March 2021)—belong to a time that was less ominous for women’s reproductive rights. In the period since, we have begun to feel the reverberations of Roe’s overturning across our nation. We considered updating our writing accordingly. However, we soon realized that no amount of revision would justly reflect the profound degree of violence to which women’s lives have now been subject. And so, we are choosing to let our past words reside as an artifact of the way we once thought, the way we wrote, back when we had more sovereignty over our uteruses.Footnote1
In coming back to these papers, with thoughts of revision, we also considered the responses we received when originally presented. One particular comment stayed with us, regarding our use of binary language as trans-exclusionary. On whose bodies did we imagine abortions were performed or denied, in whose minds were they chosen? In some ways, our use of “woman” can be seen as a relic of a bygone era—one in which gender was ascribed, not chosen or deconstructed. And from another perspective, the reference to women in this context is not a reification of the patriarchal gender binary, rather a recognition of its persistence and the way it wields its power (both psychically and actually) on the female body. From this perspective, to neutralize language around abortion is yet another erasure of women, yet another psychic silencing. Thrusting us into the heart of one of today’s most contested issues, the comment highlighted abortion’s inextricable linkage to gender politics, a politics that itself is tethered to both the body and the psyche of the collective, as well as to the individual. As psychoanalysts, it is striking to us that debates around language arise in parallel to the violent control and policing of birthing bodies. In what ways, we might ask, are we attempting through language to birth a more inclusive society? Or to abort the feminine or maternal? Ultimately, we decided not to clean up our language, but instead invite our readers to wade these murky waters with us, now armed with a new set of questions around the psycho-politics of gender and language.
Through the process of considering what to preserve and what to discard—or abort—we questioned the place of our own personal disclosures in these papers. We wondered how our personal stories of abortion may be viewed by the patriarchal gaze of psychoanalytic culture. We thought of the difference in permanence between words spoken at a conference and those on the printed page. In exaggerated moments, we pathologized our concerns of what people might think as paranoia. However, we ultimately agreed that to censor ourselves because of the change in medium would be a reenactment of the cultural stigma that coerces women into silence around their abortions. So, these are our original thoughts.
Lastly, we wanted to speak briefly about our process creating this panel. Initially, the impetus came from a very personal investigation undertaken by one of us (IB). She shared her vision with a second member (NS), who elaborated that work with a clinical experience that surprised and alarmed her. As noted above, both papers located their understanding in the wider socio-political moment in this country. The third member of the group (KBG) joined the discussion with a generational perspective bridging the earlier years of reproductive and abortive freedom in the 1960s and 1970s with the increasingly narrow options in the 2020s. What we’d like to convey is the collaborative, fertile space we created with frequent discussions during our writing process. We undertook this process in contrast to writing in individual siloed spaces where papers are shared only when completed. Throughout, we strived to integrate a psychoanalytic eye and ear with the myriad macro- and micro-cultural worlds of each of us, and of those whose stories figure in our papers.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The Editors-in-Chief of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, however, reviewed all three papers prior to inclusion in this issue, raised a few questions, and made minor edits for clarity purposes.