The Political Geographies Of Pregnancy

As reproductive power finds its way into the hands of medical professionals, lobbyists, and policymakers, the geographies of pregnancy are shifting, and the boundaries need to be redrawn, argues Laura R. Woliver. Across a politically charged backdrop of reproductive issues, Woliver exposes strategies that claim to uphold the best interests of children, families, and women but in reality complicate women's struggles to have control over their own bodies. Utilizing feminist standpoint theory and promoting a feminist ethic of care, Woliver looks at the ways modern reproductive politics are shaped by long-standing debates on abortion and adoption, surrogacy arrangements, new reproductive technologies, medical surveillance, and the mapping of the human genome.

The sites, spaces and subjects of reproduction are distinctly geographical. Reproductive geographies span different scales - body, home, local, national, global - and movements across space. This book expands our understanding of the socio-cultural and spatial aspects of fertility, pregnancy and birth. The chapters directly address global perspectives, the future of reproductive politics and state-focused approaches to the politicisation of fertility, pregnancy and birth. The book provides up-to-date explorations on the changing landscapes of reproduction, including the expansion of reproductive technologies, such as surrogacy and intrauterine insemination. Contributions in this book focus on phenomenologically-inspired accounts of women’s lived experience of pregnancy and birth, the biopolitics of birth and citizenship, the material histories of reproductive tissues as "scientific objects" and engagements with public health and development policy. This is an essential resource for upper-level undergraduates and graduates studying topics such as Sociology, Geographies of Gender, Women’s Studies and Anthropology of Health and Medicine.

A searing study of how modern reproductive politics shapes women's bodily agency Pregnancy indisputably takes place within a woman's body. But as reproductive power finds its way into the hands of medical professionals, lobbyists, and policymakers, the geographies of pregnancy are shifting, and the boundaries need to be redrawn, argues Laura R. Woliver. The Political Geographies of Pregnancy is a vigorous analysis of the ways modern reproductive politics are shaped by long-standing debates on abortion and adoption, surrogacy arrangements, new reproductive technologies, medical surveillance, and the mapping of the human genome. Across a politically charged backdrop of reproductive issues, Woliver exposes strategies that claim to uphold the best interests of children, families, and women but in reality complicate women's struggles to have control over their own bodies. Utilizing feminist standpoint theory and promoting a feminist ethic of care, Woliver looks at abortion politics, modern adoption laws that cater to male-headed families, regulations that allow the state to monitor pregnant women but not always provide care for them, and the power structures behind the seemingly benign world of egg-selling and surrogate parenting. She also considers the potentially staggering political implications of mapping the human genome, and the exclusion of women's perspectives in discussions about legislation and advancements in reproductive technologies.

From Outrage to Action examines the rise and fall of grass-roots interest groups through in-depth analyses of four incidents that mobilized citizens around local injustices. In one case, a local judge declared a five-year-old sexual assault victim a "particularly promiscuous young lady". In another, an innocent black man died in police custody. In the third, a man with a criminal record was charged with murdering a ten-year-old girl, and in the last a judge commented during a juvenile sentencing that rape is a normal reaction to the way women dress. Through in-depth interviews with activists, Laura Woliver examines these community actions, studying the groups involved and linking her conclusions to larger questions of political power and the impact of social movements. Group successes and failures are explained through analysis of fluid social movements and the role of religion, class, gender, and race. Woliver found that activists unprepared for the ostracism and conflict resulting from their dissent retreated from public life, while those who identified with alternative communities avoided self-blame and maintained their political commitments. She relates the community responses in these cases to those in the case of confessed mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer and in the beating by Los Angeles police officers of Rodney King. Her findings will make fascinating reading for those interested in the rise and fall of grass-roots interest groups, the nature of dissent, and the reasons why people volunteer countless hours, sometimes in the face of community opposition and isolation, to dedicate themselves to a cause. The four ad hoc interest groups studied are the Committee to Recall Judge ArchieSimonson (Madison), the Coalition for Justice for Ernest Lacy (Milwaukee), Concerned Citizens for Children (Grant County, Wisconsin), and Citizens Taking Action (Madison).

Technology has come to dominate the modern experience of pregnancy and childbirth, but instead of empowering pregnant women, technology has been used to identify the foetus as a second patient characterised as a distinct entity with its own needs and interests. Often, foetal and the woman’s interests will be aligned, though in legal and medical discourses the two ‘patients’ are frequently framed as antagonists with conflicting interests. This book focuses upon the permissibility of encroachment on the pregnant woman’s autonomy in the interests of the foetus. Drawing on the law in England & Wales, the United States of America and Germany, Samantha Halliday focuses on the tension between a pregnant woman’s autonomy and medical actions taken to protect the foetus, addressing circumstances in which courts have declared medical treatment lawful in the face of the pregnant woman’s refusal of consent. As a work which calls into question the understanding of autonomy in prenatal medical care, this book will be of great use and interest to students, researchers and practitioners in medical law, comparative law, bioethics, and human rights.

A balanced and thoughtful analysis of human reproduction issues in the United States with emphasis on the ethical and policy implications of cutting-edge reproductive technologies. Few subjects are as divisive and partisan as the issues surrounding the propagation of the human species. This thorough examination covers the full scope of the debates and offers an up to the minute survey of the controversial technologies that are at the heart of reproductive rights in the United States. The areas explored range from abortion and sterilization to fetal research and human cloning. The moral, societal, and public policy implications of each subject are examined thoroughly, with emphasis on those areas where cutting-edge technology has raced ahead of public policy, thereby creating new concerns for ethicists and policy-makers. Legislative oversight or the freedom to pursue reproductive technologies at any cost, this debate is far from over.

This Companion provides a comprehensive account of health and medical geography and approaches the major themes and key topics from a variety of angles. Offers a unique breadth of topics relating to both health and medical geography Includes contributions from a range of scholars from rising stars to established, internationally renowned authors Provides an up-to-date review of the state of the sub-discipline Thematically organized sections offer detailed accounts of specific issues and combine general overviews of the current literature with case study material Chapters cover topics at the cutting edge of the sub-discipline, including emerging and re-emerging diseases, the politics of disease, mental and emotional health, landscapes of despair, and the geography of care

In an era of accelerating technology and increasing complexity, how should we reimagine the emancipatory potential of feminism? How should gender politics be reconfigured in a world being transformed by automation, globalization and the digital revolution? These questions are addressed in this bold new book by Helen Hester, a founding member of the 'Laboria Cuboniks' collective that developed the acclaimed manifesto 'Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation'. Hester develops a three-part definition of xenofeminism grounded in the ideas of technomaterialism, anti-naturalism, and gender abolitionism. She elaborates these ideas in relation to assistive reproductive technologies and interrogates the relationship between reproduction and futurity, while steering clear of a problematic anti-natalism. Finally, she examines what xenofeminist technologies might look like in practice, using the history of one specific device to argue for a future-oriented gender politics that can facilitate alternative models of reproduction. Challenging and iconoclastic, this visionary book is the essential guide to one of the most exciting intellectual trends in contemporary feminism.