Autonomy and Consent after ‘Roe’ and #MeToo

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Feminist scholarship has revolutionized the understanding of consent by positing that autonomy is dependent upon a relationship between the body, the self, one’s relationships, and the broader socio-political and economic contexts in which these exist. In the wake of #MeToo and given the overturning of ‘Roe v. Wade’ (1973) with ‘Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization’ (2022), questions about who possesses bodily autonomy and whose consent is necessary and sufficient in making personal and medical decisions have taken on increasing urgency. Given the new grounds on which sex, pregnancy, and the gendered self are contested, feminist political theory has recently reinvigorated analysis of autonomy and consent. The papers on this panel explore these issues in all of their complexity, with a shared concern for the political status of people who can become pregnant in the face of an increasingly hostile state and under conditions of economic precarity. The authors take a long view of the debates over autonomy and consent with an eye to present concerns about their effects on health literacy, reproductive rights, and sexual assault.

Sub Unit

• Division 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Individual Presentations

• Against Affirmative Consent - Megan Gallagher, University of Alabama

• Why We Need a Right to Bodily Autonomy - Alisa Kessel, University of Puget Sound

• Consenting to Pregnancy: Rethinking the Political Ethics of Abortion Rights - Claire C. McKinney, William & Mary

• Re-examining Consent in an Age of Datapolitik and Neoconfederate Posturing - Jasmine Noelle Yarish, University of the District of Columbia

Chair

• Zoe Moss Southwestern University

Discussant

• Elena Gambino Rutgers University, New Brunswick