STANDPOINTS AND THE DISCOURSE ON ABORTION - THE REPRODUCTIVE DEBATE

We use Hartsock's standpoint theory to argue that a key reason for the intractability of the abortion debate is that it is framed in the ter ms of the standpoint of economically privileged, white men. Drawing on a range of feminist analyses of how gender, class, and race structure consciousness, we first identify key parameters of the dominant stand point. Then we show how they are expressed in pro-life and pro-choice discourse by identifying; four themes which recur on both sides of the debate: (1) a narrow construction of reproduction; (2) a reliance on logical dichotomy and decontextualized abstraction; (3) a tendency to construct justifications using an individualistic language of rights; and (4) an orientation to domination and confrontation. We suggest tha t alternative standpoints offer a way out of the current perceptual an d political deadlock.