TITLE:
Inception of Life on the Pendulum of Death: Common Paradigms and Uncommon Narratives on the Polemics between Birthers and Abortionists
AUTHORS:
Michael Onyedika Michaels, Felicia Ihuoma Michaels, Susan Otto
KEYWORDS:
Inception, Fertilization, Epigenetics, Nature, Nurture, Discipline, Power
JOURNAL NAME:
Sociology Mind,
Vol.13 No.2,
April
11,
2023
ABSTRACT: Obvious crevices of digression are discernible in the ongoing discourses on conception, women and
reproductive rights, and abortion. Against this backdrop, this paper sets out to explore existing
thoughts on the bio-physiological processes of conception and pregnancy,
epigenetics, and the impact of trauma on the
continuum of human psychological development with a view to accentuating
the critical intersection of the emerging discourses. By dissecting the
conflated and intricate leanings on the opposite sides of the treatise, the
paper goes beyond the current paradigm that merely proffers a time frame at which it might be
appropriate to legitimize termination of pregnancy (in other words, abort a
baby without attracting punitive attention of the state) and advance more creative
theorizing, which raises the question of power balance and discipline. Ours is
a discussion paper, covering a methodical synopsis of discourses, definitions, aims, philosophical leanings and content
analysis of major postulations, and
highlights of their operational intricacies. The paper hypothesized that a single-cell
blastocyst is a developing human being and engaging discourses on power
and discipline, it further explored the influences of epigenetics on lifespan development, and how this impinges on
women’s right over their
reproductive bodies. The paper adopts the Traditional Ecological
Knowledge (TEK), and black feminist thought to deconstruct and trouble the essentialized notion of women’s reproductive
rights, which are fundamentally
colonial, and western in nature. Using qualitative content analysis of existing
secondary materials, we
foreground the paradigm shifts on the contended topic. By so doing, the paper
mapped out a more flexible direction for understanding the disequilibrium of
power on the core premises of the argument divides. Our paper provides
uncluttered lenses for scrutinizing the socio-medical procedures involving
women’s right to their procreative bodies on one hand, and the unborn babies’ choice of
life on the other, thus creating a broader
and more objective rostrum for further discussion and scholarly contribution on the concepts.