Unforgetting: national memory and women's personal narratives about abortion in Australian public spaces since 1970. Issue 2 (3rd April 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Baird, Barbara
• Is Part Of: History Australia. Volume 19:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 285
• Page End: 304
• Publication Date: 2022-04-03
• Subjects: Abortion -- memory -- forgetting -- Australia -- personal narratives -- national identity -- personal is political; Australia -- History -- Periodicals; Australia; History; Periodicals; 905
• DOI: 10.1080/14490854.2022.2050466
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1449-0854

Abstract

Abstract: 'Silence' is commonly invoked to characterise the place of women's personal narratives of abortion in public spaces. Yet women have been publicly speaking their abortion stories at least since the beginning of the Women's Liberation Movement. This article argues that 'forgetting' is the better term to describe the public place of women's stories of abortion. After recovering a 50-year history of public story-telling, it argues that the imperatives of whiteness and white maternal citizenship in Australia underpin institutionalised forgetting of stories of abortion. It concludes that the claim of silence only reproduces the forgetting, and the innocence of white national memory.