Tissue (Madison Griffiths, Ultimo)

In 2021, during one of Victoria’s most arduous Covid-19 lockdowns, essayist and podcaster Madison Griffiths underwent the termination of a pregnancy. So begins Tissue, an insightful and perceptive critical analysis of the complex, nuanced, and often conflicting ideologies surrounding the rights, responsibilities, and choices of those with uteruses. Tissue deftly explores the complexity of having and not having guilt, a simple and significant choice. Beyond this, there is a deeper exploration and interrogation of the relationship between abortion, pregnancy, femininity, and womanhood—of the weight of a society’s expectations upon the performance of gender and of the pain of a physical experience that impacts your role, perceived or otherwise, in queer and non-queer communities. Tissue is more than just a memoir of abortion—it is an elegant and articulate analysis of the opposition between pro-choice and pro-birth movements in a post-Roe vs Wade world through the lens of critical feminist theory. It is a criticism of the sociocultural and sociopolitical ideas around abortion and uses abortion as a framework to examine racial equality, gender equality, and climate crisis activism, among others. With smart, beautifully written discussion, Griffiths lays bare the discourse of privilege and choice, addressing what it is to go up against the cultural expectations and condemnations put to those who exercise their human right to choose and ultimately terminate an unwanted, unviable, or unhealthy pregnancy.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Georgia Brough is a teacher, reviewer and writer based in Hobart. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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Category: Reviews