ABSTRACT
Abortion remains outside the boundaries of normative social practice in Thailand but is the site of a continuing social struggle. This conflict is situated in broader economic, social and ideological concerns over women’s domestic and public place in Thailand and competing constructions of gender, sexuality and motherhood (Luker 1975, 1984, Petchesky 1990, Ginsburg 1998). In this chapter, I employ a discursive analysis of public ‘abortion rhetoric’ to explore how abortion discourse links women to Thai visions of the nation.1 The following chapter will examine representations of women and gender relations in more detail. As the ethnographic research presented in Chapters 6 and 7 reveals, the discourses described here influence public opinions towards abortion and have real consequences in its continued illegality, and the shame, ambivalence and secrecy surrounding abortion by women. They form part of the ‘verbal commerce between public and private realms’ governing abortion practice (Condit 1990: 172).
