2024 Theses Doctoral

The Politics of Abortion Care in Ohio

Basmajian, Alyssa

“The Politics of Abortion Care in Ohio” is based on 16-months (November 2021- February 2023) of ethnographic fieldwork and 47 semi-structured interviews conducted before and after the Dobbs Supreme Court decision (2022) overturning the right to abortion in the United States (US). Currently, 14 states have banned abortion and three have bans prior to six weeks of pregnancy.

I assert that the criminalization of abortion care is a form of structural violence that leads to direct harm experienced by pregnant people. My dissertation strives to make significant contributions to theories of state-based violence with particular attention to reproductive governance, the anthropology of policy, and the politics of care.

First, I develop my concept of reproductive gerrymandering, which names a particular phenomenon wherein the political power of voters who support reproductive healthcare access is suppressed across political party lines. It gives the false impression that the majority of residents in states that predominately elect Republican representatives want government elimination of abortion and related services. I argue that reproductive gerrymandering is a form of bureaucratic violence used to promote anti-abortion agendas, which then causes everyday structural harm to pregnant people.

Second, building upon theories of agnotology, or the study of ignorance, I argue that “heartbeat” bans—legislation that advances medical misinformation—manipulates biomedical terms to imbue a particular social meaning to embryos at a very early stage of pregnancy. I explore how biomedical practices, in this case the use of ultrasound technology to detect a “heartbeat,” furthers the cultural production of ignorance around pregnancy and sends a strategic message about the beginnings of life.

Third, I demonstrate how constant fluctuations in abortion policy shape temporalities of care in clinic settings.

Finally, I reveal three overlooked dimensions of reproductive governance to better understand political control of reproductive bodies: administrative and regulatory, the spread of ignorance, and the political reconfiguring of reproductive time. Ultimately, I argue for the conceptual value of attending to temporalities of structural violence, and specifically the pace with which political violence unfolds.