ABSTRACT
The aborted fetal body is an absent presence in prochoice public discourses in the United States; bereft of symbols of fetal significance, the prochoice movement is open to charges of being unsympathetic to those whose abortion experiences are conflicted and of being out of touch with U.S. culture in general. Working as an abortion clinic counselor taught me the importance of engaging with the materiality of the fetus; many clinics provide patients with the option to look, to see their abortion post-procedure, as a counter to anti-abortion stigmatization and/or to provide a sense of closure to those who desire it. This chapter reads three visual abortion narratives that represent the materiality of the fetus: Christian Mungiu’s film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Romania, 2007); Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan’s comics narrative, Saga (2015–17); and “Brrap Brrap Pew Pew” (season 3 episode 6) of Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Joanna Calo’s animated series BoJack Horseman (2016). These visual representations provide very different models for abortion-positive discourses of the fetus that honor the varied experiences of pregnant/aborting patients and, at the same time, challenge abortion stigmatization.
