Chapter 6: Foetal Stories

In this chapter, we build on the religious understanding of the anti-abortion activists and unpack how this influences the ways in which they, and the materials they distribute, construct a fixed discursive meaning of the foetus, utilising a mixture of religious and scientific narratives and where personhood was accorded from conception. We begin with outlining some of the central themes in the narratives about foetuses and how these are largely made possible by eliminating acknowledgement of pregnancy as an embodied state. Next, we will consider the ways in which the activists use the idea of uniqueness to construct potential foetal futures and therefore what is, or might be, lost. We will then examine the account of foetal death and show how the construction of these ‘victims’ of abortion remain crucial to anti-abortion framing and thus sacred claimsmaking. Finally, we will look at the anti-abortion activists' absolutist position in relation to foetal anomaly, sexual crime and threat to life and illustrate how building on the ideas of ultra-sacrificial motherhood we have already outlined, women were expected to be sacrificial in their decision-making, even, in some cases, to the extent of giving up their own lives. Hence, although the foetal stories could be read as contrasting with their emphasis on motherhood, they remain interrelated through the religious beliefs of the anti-abortion activists, as we will go on to show.