LISA C. BOWER

THIS CHAPTER EXPLORES how the fetal harm debate is sustained by a tropological
dependence on race. In this debate, the focus on the substance-abusing
mother-who is frequently described as single, black, and deficient -- suggests
how perceptions about fetal abuse are supported by the trope of the dark conti-
nent, the notion that female sexuality is a dark and unexplored territory. Rhetor-
ically, this trope is constructed by a metonymic chain that links disease, sexual-
ity, female sexuality, and racial otherness.

The trope of the dark continent is mirrored in representations of race or what
Toni Morrison has recently referred to as "Africanism." ¹ To explore how race is
suppressed and expressed in this debate, this chapter considers problems raised
by conventional defenses of substance-abusing pregnant women, specifically
defenses that rest upon the language of reproductive rights. Concerns about
surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and new reproductive technologies have, in con-
junction with the doctrinal unravelling of Roe v. Wade, generated justifiable
alarm regarding women's ability to control their reproductive futures. For some
feminists, the erosion of reproductive autonomy provides an opportunity to re-
think the contours and limitations of the right to privacy, the doctrinal principle
animating the right to choice. ² Others have reasserted the intimate connection
between mother and fetus as an antidote to fetal rights advocates who claim the
primacy of the rights of the fetus. Drawing on Carol Gilligan's work, one variant
of this theme posits that women's close physical and psychological relationship
to the fetus constitutes a distinctive "moral vision" that supports the importance
(and appropriateness) of women's decision making during pregnancy. ³ Some

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