CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 337
iswrittenorfromwhichitmaybeaugured.Itshouldbenotedhere,that
the investment of—essentially an as yet absent body—with such great
significance is, as in the case of racism, intimately linked to a state of
emergency, here a perceived national emergency in which human life
allegedlynolongermatters.
But not only have "life issues" become immensely politicized, "life
issues" have also, and perhaps even more importantly, become a
language through which other, not necessarily related national policy
decisions are being expressed. As Bruce Lincoln has shown inHoly
Terrors, the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11 routinely
adopted bits and pieces of pro-life rhetoric, even verbatim, to justify its
military actions abroad (65-74).^17 President Bush himself defined his
"WaronTerror"asawar"topreserveandprotectlifeitself"(qtd.inM.
Cooper,Life as Surplus152), a "life itself" which in the minds of the
Christian Right and many neoconservatives finds its iconic
representation in unborn life. In this fashion, the future of the body
politicissaidtodependdirectlyonthewell-beingofselectedindividual
bodiesandthenation,asAnthonyElliotthasargued,is"heldinthrallto
thefetusandtheflag"(51).^18
The question of the civic status of unborn life is, as I said above,
ethicallycomplex,withdebates,notonlyintheGlobalNorth,repeatedly
pitching pro-life vs. pro-choice. What is unique about the U.S.-
American situation is not only the violent intensity^19 with which the
debate is conducted there but also the degree to which it is (geo-)
political. The merger—one is tempted to feel reminded here of a
corporate merger—of neocons and pro-lifers produces a unique
combinationofthesomaticandthesemantic,avolatilecontextinwhich
the human body "as bearer of symbolic value" (Shilling 111) has
(^17) Thefusionofreligionandrepublicanisminmomentsofnationalemergencyis
of course nothing new. As Mark Noll has shown, it was already fully in place
aroundthemiddleofthe19thcentury(173-75).
(^18) In a related argument, Melinda Cooper has suggested that the rhetoric of the
pro-life movement essentially amounts to a "rewriting of the Declaration of
Independenceasaright-to-lifetract"(L ifeasSurplus 171).
(^19) My reference to violence is here intended to point also to the violence
perpetrated by the pro-life camp, through bombings of clinics and even
occasionalkillingsofpersonnel.