Access to medical attention should be a right, no matter religious qualification or moralizing over another adult person’s decision. In the case of abortion, this is complicated by how we judge human sentience in the form of an unborn child. It is complicated. To say otherwise would be a misstep that does not account for said child’s right to live if we consider it human. However, it is not incumbent on me or anybody else how to tell someone to live with bringing an unborn child to term. I have my feelings about such matters, but in no way should that dictate, particularly under federal law, what a woman can and cannot do with their decisions.
This seems like a foregone conclusion, yet the discussion continues, and the moralizing and constant control over women’s bodies also carries on. Arguably, this need to control is what is at stake more than the full-term birth of a child. One may very well argue that, at its core, abortion shows the pale, ugly face of feminine enslavement. If it were only about the situation regarding the unborn child, we, as a society, would find measures to keep the numbers of unwanted pregnancies down that do not solely rely on the woman’s body being used as its battleground for the discussion.
It would further be remiss of me not to mention the church’s role as moral arbiters of this discussion, a role that, when one considers the copious amounts of child abuse racked up on behalf of their flock, creates a duplicitous form of grotesque double standard. Im not in the habit of listening to child rapists explain to people why it is essential, imperative, for them to have more children. You can take what you will from that. Be it child farming or, at the very least, a hypocritical position.
Women should not have to imperil themselves with unsafe abortions. This sentiment and the community surrounding abortion clinics and female care are at the heart of Carmen Winant’s exceptional book The Last Safe Abortion (SPBH/MACK, 2024). The book explores the period of legal federal abortion between 1973-2022 and shows, in a very utilitarian sense, the backside of these clinics. The photographs are without artifice and are drawn from several archival holdings. Winant’s photographs, produced with 35mm film cameras, are a task that the artists and teacher have admitted presented a learning curve. Winant is known for her work in editing photographs with social concerns rather than producing them at this stage, so returning to shooting these images was likely an eye-opener if you imagine the lighting inside such clinics. Her excellent book My Birth (SPBH, 2018) was a similar exercise to The Last Safe Abortion.
With the book, I am reminded of the lasting importance of Allan Sekula’s work. The essence of photography as a means, like Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine before him, to take up social responsibility as a subject matter to advocate, if not for change, for observation of misdoing. We can argue about photography’s role in making significant social change. It is flawed. It does not always have the desired effect, yet when we strip back the artifice and consider its role in expressing a condition; it can still be a powerful tool for a message. Winant’s work has this capacity. Her archival work and ability to turn the camera toward important personal and political subject matter excel. The messaging in Winant’s case is clear. Her use of photography is precise.
Regarding bookmaking, this spiral-bound edition of her work, with its multi-colored pages and small grids of images, feels in part like an archival foray but also like a manual. This part of the design is highly well-considered. Winant continues to inspire a concerned photographic practice and reception with her work. As with My Birth, I have only the highest recommendations for her considered and essential contributions to photography and photobook.
