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| Pregnancy holds two irreducible realities within one asymmetrical field: intimacy without fusion, dependence without possession, and responsibility without the transfer of inner jurisdiction. |
Proem — Before the Verdict
Few ethical questions make language harden as quickly as abortion. The developing being becomes a life, a child, an organism, potential personhood, or biological material. The woman becomes a mother, a patient, an autonomous individual, a body, or an environment upon which another life depends. Each term reveals something. Each also conceals something.
By the time public disagreement begins, language has often already divided the field. One side fears that developing life will be treated as disposable matter. The other fears that the woman whose body sustains that life will be reduced to a biological function. Both fears disclose something real. Neither, by itself, tells us how a responsible judgment should be formed.
