Competition and change in the discourse on abortion in Taiwan

Abstract

Women in Taiwan first gained the right to abortion in 1986 under the Eugenic Health Law. Although this allowed abortion under certain circumstances, abortion is otherwise still deemed a criminal act under the Penal Code. Following Myra Marx Ferree's analysis of discourses on abortion in the USA and Germany, and based on Foucault's theories on discourse and Fraser's analysis of competing counterpublics, this chapter analyses the competition of discourses over three decades between the women's movement and the religious or conservative countermovement in relation to the revision of abortion law in Taiwan. This chapter demonstrates how rhetorics about birth control/the birth rate have been strategically used by both sides within various social contexts. I will also analyse how feminist discourses have developed over the decades and how rhetorics of 'for women's sake' or the employment of 'international experiences' are used by both sides, especially during the proposals for constraint on women's right to abortion in the last two years. This chapter will also highlight how the progress of the women's movement and LGBTQI rights in Taiwan create a more supportive view on women's bodily rights and also make the conservative religious groups intensify political mobilisation from the countermovement.