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Policing Women to Protect Fetuses: Coercive Interventions During Pregnancy

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Analyzing Violence Against Women

Part of the book series: Library of Public Policy and Public Administration ((LPPP,volume 12))

Abstract

Women are routinely subjected to penetrating surveillance during pregnancy. On the surface, this may appear to flow from a cultural commitment to protect babies – a cultural practice of “better safe than sorry” that is particularly vigilant given the vulnerability of fetuses and babies. In reality, pregnancy occasions incursions against human rights and well-being that would be anathema in other contexts. Our cultural practices concerning risk in pregnancy are infused with oppressive norms about women’s responsibility for pregnancy outcomes and the demands of extreme self-sacrifice from women to protect their fetuses. Of particular concern is our culture’s willingness to enforce norms concerning risk during pregnancy using coercive measures including forced cesarean sections and criminal penalties for exposing fetuses to risk. This chapter will consider assaults on self-determination, bodily integrity and privacy inherent in such interventions, as well as the structural violence and “mangled pieties” (Wallace DF. Authority and American usage. In: Consider the lobster and other essays. Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2006, 114) that buttress such practices in our unjust society.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Debra A. DeBruin

  2. Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Mary Faith Marshall

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  1. Debra A. DeBruin
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  2. Mary Faith Marshall
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Correspondence to Debra A. DeBruin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy and Applied Ethics, Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Wanda Teays

Additional information

This chapter is dedicated to Nancy Rhoden and Lynn Paltrow, pioneers in reproductive rights and justice. We stand on their shoulders, and those of all pregnant women whose basic human rights have been abridged.

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DeBruin, D.A., Marshall, M.F. (2019). Policing Women to Protect Fetuses: Coercive Interventions During Pregnancy. In: Teays, W. (eds) Analyzing Violence Against Women. Library of Public Policy and Public Administration, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05989-7_8

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