{"title":"The Dobbs Leak and Reproductive Justice","authors":"Emily Winderman, Atilla Hallsby","doi":"10.1080/00335630.2022.2128205","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"OnMay 3, 2022, Emily concluded a first-year seminar on Reproductive Justice (hereafter RJ). The class brainstormed rhetorical practices that might enable and preclude meaningful coalition in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s anticipated overturn. The same day, Atilla’s rhetorical theory class reviewed “real” and “manufactured” instances of leaking. That evening, Politico published the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health draft decision. Although Alito’s leaked draft was a sensitizing moment for some, RJ activists and attorneys had anticipated the decision. Invalidating Constitutionally guaranteed rights to abortion and privacy, the leak staged an attack on stare decisis, confirmed in June with Justice Thomas’s insistence that the Court revisit other Roe-backed decisions like Obergefell v. Hodges. While many claimed the leak was unprecedented, two Roe v. Wade-related leaks occurred in the 1970s. Whereas the June 24, 2022 Dobbs decision officially overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, this essay considers the rhetorical significance of the leak. Leaks signify a dual transgressive fluidity, in the sense that information or bodily contaminants (e.g., blood, saliva) seep – both pleasurably and dangerously – across boundaries that have become porous. The body’s inherent ‘leakiness’ also means that embodied and gendered metaphors are a readily available shorthand for leaks that circumvent institutional bodies, like the Supreme Court. The Dobbs leak stages this situation: a fluid movement of information that transgressed an institutional boundary. However, given the impossibility of metaphorically suturing the institutional body by staunching the flow of information, many pundits channeled the loss of control brought on by the leak into a different bodily register. By prioritizing biologically sexed “women,” these commentors restricted coalitional language that affirmed gender fluidity and denied the personhood of the transgender and non-binary pregnant bodies also affected by Dobbs. As we argue, pundits rhetorically “sutured” the Dobbs v. Jackson leak by elevating “women” as the centralizing term for post-Roe coalitional identifications. By excluding abortion’s relevance to the more gender-fluid coalition of pregnant people, these responses also eschewed a more comprehensive RJ framework needed for future fights toward reproductive freedom. Our forum contribution traces the regressively gendered framings of the Dobbs leak in public discourse. We note especially how gender-suturing responses pre-emptively limited a broader abortion coalition. The RJ framework helps to anticipate future alignments between anti-abortion activists and trans-exclusionary feminists. We close by considering leaky coalitions that highlight the necessity of broader reproductive boundaries.","PeriodicalId":51545,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Speech","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quarterly Journal of Speech","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2022.2128205","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
OnMay 3, 2022, Emily concluded a first-year seminar on Reproductive Justice (hereafter RJ). The class brainstormed rhetorical practices that might enable and preclude meaningful coalition in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s anticipated overturn. The same day, Atilla’s rhetorical theory class reviewed “real” and “manufactured” instances of leaking. That evening, Politico published the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health draft decision. Although Alito’s leaked draft was a sensitizing moment for some, RJ activists and attorneys had anticipated the decision. Invalidating Constitutionally guaranteed rights to abortion and privacy, the leak staged an attack on stare decisis, confirmed in June with Justice Thomas’s insistence that the Court revisit other Roe-backed decisions like Obergefell v. Hodges. While many claimed the leak was unprecedented, two Roe v. Wade-related leaks occurred in the 1970s. Whereas the June 24, 2022 Dobbs decision officially overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, this essay considers the rhetorical significance of the leak. Leaks signify a dual transgressive fluidity, in the sense that information or bodily contaminants (e.g., blood, saliva) seep – both pleasurably and dangerously – across boundaries that have become porous. The body’s inherent ‘leakiness’ also means that embodied and gendered metaphors are a readily available shorthand for leaks that circumvent institutional bodies, like the Supreme Court. The Dobbs leak stages this situation: a fluid movement of information that transgressed an institutional boundary. However, given the impossibility of metaphorically suturing the institutional body by staunching the flow of information, many pundits channeled the loss of control brought on by the leak into a different bodily register. By prioritizing biologically sexed “women,” these commentors restricted coalitional language that affirmed gender fluidity and denied the personhood of the transgender and non-binary pregnant bodies also affected by Dobbs. As we argue, pundits rhetorically “sutured” the Dobbs v. Jackson leak by elevating “women” as the centralizing term for post-Roe coalitional identifications. By excluding abortion’s relevance to the more gender-fluid coalition of pregnant people, these responses also eschewed a more comprehensive RJ framework needed for future fights toward reproductive freedom. Our forum contribution traces the regressively gendered framings of the Dobbs leak in public discourse. We note especially how gender-suturing responses pre-emptively limited a broader abortion coalition. The RJ framework helps to anticipate future alignments between anti-abortion activists and trans-exclusionary feminists. We close by considering leaky coalitions that highlight the necessity of broader reproductive boundaries.
2022年5月3日,艾米丽结束了生殖正义(以下简称RJ)的第一年研讨会。在罗伊诉韦德案预计将被推翻之后,班级集体讨论了可能促成或阻止有意义的联盟的修辞实践。同一天,阿提拉的修辞学理论课回顾了“真实的”和“捏造的”泄密事件。当晚,《政治》杂志公布了泄露的多布斯诉杰克逊妇女健康案裁决草案。虽然阿利托泄露的草案对一些人来说是一个敏感的时刻,但RJ活动家和律师已经预料到了这一决定。这一泄密事件使宪法保障的堕胎权和隐私权无效,对传统决策发起了攻击。今年6月,托马斯大法官坚持要求最高法院重新审议奥贝格费尔诉霍奇斯案(Obergefell v. Hodges)等其他由罗伊支持的判决,证实了这一点。虽然许多人声称这次泄密是前所未有的,但与罗伊诉韦德案有关的两次泄密事件发生在20世纪70年代。鉴于2022年6月24日的多布斯判决正式推翻了罗伊诉韦德案和计划生育联合会诉凯西案,本文考虑了泄密的修辞意义。泄漏意味着一种双重越界的流动性,从某种意义上说,信息或身体污染物(如血液、唾液)渗透——既愉快又危险——越过已经变得多孔的边界。该机构固有的“漏洞”也意味着,具体化和性别化的隐喻是规避最高法院等机构的漏洞的现成捷径。多布斯泄密事件引发了这种情况:一种超越制度边界的信息流动。然而,鉴于不可能通过阻止信息流动来隐喻地缝合机构机构,许多专家将泄密带来的失控归咎于不同的身体登记册。通过优先考虑生理性别的“女性”,这些评论者限制了肯定性别流动性的联合语言,并否认了变性人和非二元怀孕身体的人格,这些身体也受到多布斯的影响。正如我们所争论的那样,专家们在修辞上“缝合”了多布斯诉杰克逊案的漏洞,将“女性”提升为后罗伊案件联盟身份的集中术语。通过排除堕胎与孕妇性别流动性更强的联盟的相关性,这些回应也回避了未来争取生殖自由所需的更全面的RJ框架。我们的论坛贡献追溯了公共话语中多布斯泄密的倒退性别框架。我们特别注意到性别缝合反应如何先发制人地限制了更广泛的堕胎联盟。RJ框架有助于预测未来反堕胎活动家和跨性别排斥女权主义者之间的结盟。最后,我们将讨论一些有漏洞的联盟,这些联盟强调了扩大生殖边界的必要性。
期刊介绍:
The Quarterly Journal of Speech (QJS) publishes articles and book reviews of interest to those who take a rhetorical perspective on the texts, discourses, and cultural practices by which public beliefs and identities are constituted, empowered, and enacted. Rhetorical scholarship now cuts across many different intellectual, disciplinary, and political vectors, and QJS seeks to honor and address the interanimating effects of such differences. No single project, whether modern or postmodern in its orientation, or local, national, or global in its scope, can suffice as the sole locus of rhetorical practice, knowledge and understanding.