ABSTRACT
Most women who seek abortions became pregnant while having sexual intercourse with men. Most did not mean or wish to conceive. In women’s experience, sexuality and reproduction are inseparable from each other and from gender. The abortion debate, by contrast, has centered on separating control over sexuality from control over reproduction, and on separating both from gender. Continuing this logic, many opponents of state funding of abortions would permit funding of abortions when pregnancy results from rape or incest. They make exceptions for those special occasions on which they presume women did not control sex. Abortion promises women sex with men on the same terms on which men have sex with women. So long as women do not control access to their sexuality, this facilitates women’s heterosexual availability. Some versions of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits use of public money to fund abortions, have contained exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
