DEFINING ENCOUNTERS - WHO ARE THE WOMEN ENTITLED TO JOIN THE ISRAELI COLLECTIVE

Israeli abortion law informs the action taken by professionals dealing with women who come to define a pregnancy as ''unwanted.'' In this pa per, we examine the discourse produced by such professionals in the li ght of the feminist suggestion that the complex link between women and the state involves a duality: a duality that simultaneously defines g ender as irrelevent to issues of affiliation and acts as a powerful me chanism of exclusion. Secondary analysis of two previous studies in th is area show that three distinct female national identities: the norma tive woman, the marginal, and the other, are embedded in the controlli ng practices of professionals involved in regulating pregnancy termina tions. We show that the Israeli woman is defined as ''responsible'' (w hen using contraception); ''committed'' (when she contributes to the b iological reproduction of the collective) and ''sensible'' (when avoid ing the ''trouble'' of an unwanted pregnancy altogether). Our intervie ws with social workers and administrators reflect the role of professi onals as the gatekeepers of the Israeli collective; only those women o beying the institutional imperatives for reproductive behaviour (i.e., who do not use abortion as a contraceptive) are entitled to admittanc e, that is, to be defined as an Israeli women and hence escape thr lab elling as ''other.'' (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.