Personhood: More than just Control, Must be about Equality

Susan Bordo dives head-first into the conversation about personhood through her article entitled "Are Mothers Persons? Reproductive Rights and the Politics of Subject-ivity". As the title implies, the controversy over reproductive rights is essentially the controversy over "subjecthood", or personhood. Grammatically speaking, the subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that is being or doing something. Knowing that and trying to place it in this context, it can be inferred that the subject of one's life is what is actively being or doing something; in other words, the subject of one's life is the thing that is actively living. And so, Bordo's article examines just that - the subject that is actively living. The politics that are tied into this then are the politics of reproductive rights and the way in which a woman can both lose and gain subjecthood over her own life - something a man never has to worry he'll lose. As current legislation stands, a woman can (and does) lose her subjectivity when, instead, the fetus becomes the subject of a pregnant woman's life. When a woman becomes pregnant, she must give up her personhood for the sake of the fetus gaining its own personhood over her body. Seeing this as an issue, Bordo thoroughly examines and critiques the idea that, as it stands in our society, mothers are not the subject - or person - of their own lives but rather mere vessels for the fetus, the subject, the main person of concern. 

A perfect example of the reality that Bordo critiques is Personhood USA: Personhood USA, an anti-abortion, pro-life organization, defines personhood as "the cultural and legal recognition of the equal and unalienable rights of human beings." Personhood USA then continues that personhood is an affirmation of individual rights, and to be a person is to be "protected by a series of God-given rights and constitutional guarantees such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Through these definitions, it might appear as if Personhood USA has the potential to protect the rights of many women nationwide - however, unfortunately Personhood USA, does exactly the opposite of that; Personhood USA is an organization that fights for the rights of unborn fetuses, arguing that, as young humans, they deserve the same rights and respect as any full-grown human. As a result of this and despite the fact that Personhood USA may claim they are fighting for equal rights, Personhood USA fails to protect the rights that a woman ought to have, as both a mother and a human being. 

In examining this organization with added perspective and understanding from Bordo's piece, it is clear that Personhood USA jeopardizes a woman's own subjectivity for the sake of her potential child. There are many societal factors that contribute to this loss of subjectivity, all which revolve around the idea that women are inferior to men. Organizations such as Personhood USA, as well as the people who support such organizations, obsess over the fetus and fight to protect it, because, without their effort, the only individual with a say in the fetus' well-being is the mother herself. The idea that a woman has full and complete control over the young fetus is alarming because it promotes the idea that a woman is responsible enough to make decisions regarding both her well-being and the well-being of her child. It is my personal belief that if men were the individuals carrying the child, they would be trusted to make informed decisions regarding the state of the fetus. Why? For the reason briefly and subtlety aforementioned, now stated perhaps more blatantly: the pro-choice movement terrifies and alarms many individuals because it is a movement that not only empowers the female, but does so by placing all responsibility on the woman, thus removing men from the decision process. This is terrifying to our society because, as a country where a woman has yet to be president - even after all these some 230 years - and as a country where women still make $0.77 to a man's $1.00, any system that privileges a woman (or even makes her equal to a man) is a system that is not worth trusting. 

With all being said, Bordo does not believe this is the core of the issue.

So long as the debate over reproductive control is conceptualized solely in dominant terms of the abortion debate  - that is, as a conflict between the fetus's right to life and the woman's right to choose - we are fooled into thinking that is only the fetus whose ethical and legal status is at issue. 

In the above excerpt, Bordo writes of how the issue of personhood is only briefly discussed as we discuss a woman's right to choose and a fetus's right to live. Although a pregnant woman's personhood is most clearly seen being misrepresented when instead her fetus receives the most attention, a pregnant woman's personhood relies on far, far more than her decision to keep or abort a child. Thus, in agreement with Bordo, I must say that while I myself am pro-choice and fully believe that a woman's life ought to be prioritized over a fetus that may or may not be born, I ultimately see the issues of reproductive rights being issues that are not so clear; the fight for a pregnant woman's personhood will NOT be over when women have easy and affordable access to safe and professional abortion, but rather, the fight for a pregnant woman's personhood will be over when each inequality and injustice in our gendered societal structure is brought into light, discussed, and appropriately adjusted.