Inconsistent Abortion: A Critical Phenomenology of a Hidden Practice

This thesis explores the effects of unwanted pregnancy and abortion upon a person. To investigate these phenomena, I develop a Husserlian phenomenological method with support from critical phenomenologists to investigate how class affects abortion accessibility worldwide. I approach a topic that has often been used as an example by philosophers rather than as an object of study in itself. In the field of phenomenology, pregnancy has been extensively discussed, but chosen pregnancy tends to be the focus. My research instead dives into the blurry experience of unwanted pregnancy, rejected pregnancy, and the abortion experience. I aim to analyse both the procedure and the context that surrounds it to try to express the struggles that aborting people face every day. In doing so, I aim to ground the topic and save it from further abstraction and ideological debate, which has only damaged material access to it. Despite one’s location and the legality of abortion, my research shows how negative experiences and themes occur consistently worldwide, and how abortion is increasingly difficult to access the fewer resources a woman has at her disposal.

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