| Summary: | Abortion remains a contentious issue, which greatly raises ethical problems. This thesis examines the leading arguments in the Swedish abortion debate around the – in terms of legislation – critical years of 1938 and 1974. With Foucault's genealogical method, Butler's theories of gender as a social construction in relation to power and doxa, the study examines what the development of the argumentation says about the views on morality, the woman's body, life, individual and state? How has the arguments pro and against abortion changed over time and what does this say about the norms that guide and orientate the arguments? The most obvious change in argumentation is seen in the shift from an absolute moral and conservative position into an increasingly relativistic and liberal position, and this study will argue that this shift has its prerequisites in the changing status of the citizen and state. Yet, despite these developments, a moral ambivalence can be discerned in the arguments advanced in favour of the right to abortion. The question of what life is grievable and when this occurs is constantly negotiated. This constant negotiation is modulated and modified by different discourses. As this study shows, the absolutistic and the relativistic discourse gives rise to radically different positions. But while the relativistic discourse once radicalized the discussion on abortion, mainly because it served to relativize an absolutist position, it serves radically other purposes today. The subjectivist stance could even be seen to threaten individual’s right to self-determination over their own bodies.
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