... and ain't i a woman?: Wolf makes tall leaps

Wolf makes tall leapBy Kath Gelber In these days of postmodernist paradigms, language has become the new prism through which theories of oppression and liberation are refracted. Language and form are the focus for analyses of oppression — not structures and institutions. In this context, various writers have begun to debate the use of language in the social movements as an isolated phenomenon. The language that movements use is being analysed in isolation from the broader political context faced by that movement in struggling for change. Well known author Naomi Wolf appears to have taken this on as a personal mission in her latest contribution to feminist discussion around abortion. In a recently published article, Wolf claims that the pro-choice movement, to its detriment, has left the language of morals, of right and wrong, to the anti-choice movement. She draws a direct link between the failure of the pro-choice movement to engage with moralist rhetoric and the "ascendancy of the religious right". "The movement's abandonment of an ethical core and its reliance instead on a political rhetoric in which the foetus means nothing are proving fatal", she warns. Surely a rather tall leap to make in a single bound. Wolf's reasoning is quite simple. Recently pregnant with her first child, she found it difficult to define the developing foetus and, when confronted by an anti-choice advocate, deferred to anti-choice language and conceded it was a "baby". Even on the level of language Wolf mixed up two essentially different aspects of the abortion debate here. An individual woman who has chosen to carry her pregnancy to term and therefore wishes to bear a child may of course choose to relate to that developing foetus in many ways. To generalise from that individual experience to insist that all developing foetuses — no matter whether at 2 days or 8 months - are babies and therefore deserving of consideration of "their full humanity", as Wolf claims, is reactionary. The issue is a political one. A woman must have the right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy regardless of any circumstances. By engaging with the language of the anti-choice movement, Wolf has joined the backlash team. Wolf has involved herself in a discussion around terminology which is removed from the broader political considerations of why the religious right is gaining in popularity, and why it is that women still do not have abortion rights. Wolf blames the pro-choice movement, for using the wrong terminology. The reasons for the ascendancy of the religious right are many, but they are certainly not cantered around language. Wolf, although she may claim still to be pro-choice, has joined the backlash on the abortion debate.