Cracked Babies and the Partial Birth of a Nation

Millennialism and Fetal Citizenship

Bibliographic Data

ID18992067
AuthorsCarol Mason (0009-0006-6626-3841, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume14
Issue1
Pages35-60
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0950-2386 • E-ISSN: 1466-4348
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/095023800334977
OpenAlexW2017400195
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited4

This essay explores whether fetal protection cases concerning ‘partial birth’ and ‘crack babies’ reflect an undercurrent of millennialism that characterizes anti-abortion violence. Because the dichotomized millennialist worldview of pure and impure domains easily corroborates racialist ideas that there are pure and impure races, discussions of fetal protection may also accommodate race-specific assumptions or implications. Fetuses involved in ‘partial birth’ abortions are routinely portrayed as purely innocent, whole, and intact babies worthy of the privileges of citizenship that will save them from death. But ‘crack babies’, who are explicitly presumed to be black, are routinely portrayed as impure, tainted, and polluted babies who are a liability to society and from whom the tax-paying citizenry should be saved. Viewed comparatively, these legal disputes may be seen as unwittingly reinscribing the racialist tenets of far-right groups that consider abortion to be the apocalyptic end times of white America

Abortion · Biology · Citizenship · Criminology · Liability · Political science · Pregnancy · Race (biology) · Sociology · Gender Studies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Race, History, and American Society

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