Governing the Womb: Reproductive Inequality and State Power Post Roe

Abstract

This thesis explores the inequality of reproductive rights and abortion healthcare access within the United States of America, showing how abortion is problematised in law and how post-Roe abortion policies contribute to structural inequality. My thesis focuses on six legislative texts from Texas, Mississippi and California, using Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR) framework, drawing on postcolonial feminist theory, the concept of intersectionality and Foucault’s theory of biopower. The analysis demonstrates how contrasting legal frameworks produce unequal realities by drawing on the lived experiences of three individuals across different states. While in Texas, we see a model built on surveillance and public enforcement, Mississippi shows a punitive approach rooted in moral authority and criminalisation, leaving California demonstrating a rights-based framework that centres abortion as healthcare, though access remains shaped by structural inequality. The abortion laws and individual cases analysed in this thesis function as sites of powerknowledge, revealing how biopower governs reproductive rights by regulating bodies, enforcing norms and determining who is granted autonomy. The findings of this thesis suggest that since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, reproductive inequality in the United States has become increasingly defined by geography. Access to abortion is shaped by state borders, but also by structural inequalities within those same areas. Race, income level, immigration status and access to transport all determine who can exercise reproductive autonomy and who cannot. Drawing on Foucault’s biopower, this thesis concludes that abortion law functions as a technology of state control, where the regulation of reproduction is used to manage populations, enforce norms and determine which lives are protected.