Thouchanok Sattayavinit “Reclaiming the Womb: The Right to Reproductive Autonomy over Women’s Bodies in Vietnam”

To go beyond the binary of the abortion debate, this article argues that the Western debate on abortion has been trapped in a pro-life versus pro-choice dichotomy. These two sides of the debate have been idealized by the concept of individualism in the Western liberal context. They focus on individual values, freedom, and the right to privacy, whether it is for the rights of the fetus or the rights of the woman. In Vietnam, women’s bodies have been disciplined by the mechanisms of power at different levels such as population control and Confucian ideology. However, this does not mean that the bodies are always docile. For Vietnamese women, their womb has a meaning beyond being simply a means of reproduction. Women have reclaimed their wombs in different ways; whether abortion is legalized or not in Vietnam, they have the autonomy to make their own choices when it comes to their bodies. This study is based on eight women’s narratives about their abortion experience: how they redefine the meaning of the womb and the ways in which they negotiate regulatory power.

Keywords: politics of reproduction, reproductive autonomy, abortion, reclaiming the womb, subjectivity