Body and embodiment in the experience of abortion for Mexican women: the sexual body, the fertile body, and the body of abortion

Abstract

In April 2007, Mexico City's Legislative Assembly passed a law that decriminalized abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, and established that the Ministry of Health was to provide the service. This has allowed Mexican women to seek a legal termination of pregnancy (LTP) without any legal procedure at all, therefore setting different coordinates for the experience. This article explores the above issues through the qualitative analysis of 24 interviews with women who had an LTP in Mexico City public clinics during 2008 and 2009. The way the body is discursively constructed during the process of voluntary abortion is discussed, by looking at how its materiality is present in women's narratives. Consequently, the relations established between the subject and her body in the context of pregnancy and its termination are also looked at. The analysis shows that three kinds of embodiment come through in women's narratives of their experience of abortion: the sexual body, the fertile body, and the body of abortion.