Should We Abolish the Family? On the Relationship Between Care and the State

In recent years, activist calls for the abolition of a number of institutions have become more visible in popular discourse. This includes a demand to abolish the family itself. This roundtable features four panelists, from a range of disciplinary approaches, whose interests coalesce around gender, care, and home. The roundtable will focus on the following four questions: Should we abolish the family? What does family abolition entail? How do religious concepts and theological systems construct the body, the relationship between self and body, and the relationship between the body and the state? And what religious resources might fund new visions of care? Panelists discuss Black geographies and the built environment; sexual autonomy and the politics of consent; pregnancy and motherhood; and parental rights and public education.