Prenatal Genetic Technologies and the Social Control of Pregnant Women: A Review of the Key Issues

Ettorre, Elizabeth

doi:10.1080/01494920903050680

Cited by 15 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 103 publications

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“…This article has presented findings on the lived experiences of pregnant and parenting women as they navigate the myriad institutions (medical, legal, and social services) that manage OUD in the Western region of Massachusetts (MA). The contribution of this article is to make legible the institutional violence enacted upon mothers with OUD, largely in the name of 'fetal victimhood' (Knight 2015) wherein 'reproductive asceticism' (Ettorre 2009) remains paramount. Returning to the notion of a gendered triple standard, more than other populations, pregnant and parenting women with OUD have limited autonomy in the decision to engage with these systems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Triple Standard and Biomedical Management of Perinatal and Maternal Opioid Use Disorder in the United States

Fiddian-Green

2019

JEA

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Despite trends towards treatment versus punitive-based approaches to addressing opioid use disorders (OUD) in the United States, pregnant and parenting women with OUD remain highly stigmatized, their maternal fitness routinely contested. Biomedical conceptions of OUD as a chronic, relapsing condition often run counter to the abstinence-based models enforced across the myriad institutions that manage OUD, particularly for women whose maternal status is contingent on treatment enrollment and adherence. Exposure to trauma is considered to be nearly universal among women with OUD; biomedical classifications of trauma primarily center on the interpersonal (i.e., adverse childhood [ACEs] and lifetime experiences). This work responds to a call to ‘gender addiction’ (Campbell and Ettorre 2011) and examine the ‘epistemologies of ignorance’ (Tuana 2006) around notions of ‘risk’ by advocating for a broadened definition of trauma that incorporates the institutional violence imbedded into policies and procedures specific to the biomedical management of OUD. Drawing from an 18-month ethnographic investigation of pregnant and parenting women with OUD living in the Northeastern United States., this article argues that the intertwined institutions (e.g. medical, legal, and social services) that manage OUD according to biomedical dictates enact a converging constellation of violence on women; this in turn becomes a form of embodied trauma, directly influencing perinatal and maternal opioid use trajectories. Key findings include: (1) civil commitment to treatment as a form of direct bodily violence, (2) loss of maternal status as visceral violence, and (3) institutional erasures (i.e., intergenerational family separation) as symbolic violence.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Triple Standard and Biomedical Management of Perinatal and Maternal Opioid Use Disorder in the United States

Fiddian-Green

2019

JEA

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“…Deaf/disabled women also are marked as "risky mothers," because they openly defy neoliberal values which prescribe that disability should be prevented through reproductive self-regulation. As new genetics practices offer the promise of delineating "good fetuses" from "bad fetuses," so, too, does this regime distinguish between women who are good and bad reproducers (Ettorre 2009). While nondisabled mothers are expected to engage in highly disciplined health practices to prevent disability, Deaf/ disabled women continue to experience an imperative of childlessness.…”

Section: Mothers With Disabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risky Mothers and the Normalcy Project

Frederick

2017

Gender & Society

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Feminist scholars have been critical of the expectations placed upon mothers to accomplish a perfect version of motherhood, but have often failed to interrogate the values about normalcy and disability imbedded in modern mothering ideologies. Mothers with disabilities are well positioned to expose the underlying beliefs about normalcy with which all mothers must contend. Drawing from interviews and focus groups conducted with mothers who have physical and sensory disabilities, I explore Deaf/disabled women's experiences negotiating the scientific motherhood regime. Illuminating a paradox, I argue these women are labeled "risky mothers" under scientific motherhood, which prizes the management of risk and the prevention of disability. Yet, these mothers are simultaneously rendered invisible by inaccessible and inflexible medical practices, and by a consumer market of expert advice which prescribes that mothers inhabit a typical body. These women's experiences illuminate the normalcy project as a central tenet of scientific motherhood.

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“…The maternal citizen must be responsible not only for herself, but the pre-conceived, pre-born or born entity that her body produces. This is acknowledged both in Beck and Beck-Gernsheim's work and in biopolitical analyses of pregnancy (Ettorre 2002(Ettorre , 2009Ruhl 2002;Salmon 2011;Weir 1996Weir , 2006.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Configuring Maternal, Preborn and Infant Embodiment

Lupton

2012

SSRN Journal

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A growing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and parenting has demonstrated the increasing emphasis that has been placed upon pregnant women and mothers to take responsibility for the health and welfare of their children. The ideal female 'reproductive citizen' is expected to place her children's health and wellbeing above her own needs and desires. Here the subject positions of the 'good mother' and the 'responsible citizen' as they are produced through the discourses and practices of neoliberalism intertwine. This paper looks at the convergence of various influential discourses, images, practices and technologies in configuring maternal, preborn and infant bodies in certain ways in the context of neoliberalism. These include such factors as the growing importance of the concept of risk in relation to preborn and infant wellbeing, the extension of infant identity back into preborn bodies, the emergence of the concepts of the foetal and embryonic (and even the preconceived embryonic) citizen, the precious child and intensive parenting and the symbolic concepts of permeability, purity and danger and Self and Other as they relate to maternal, infant and preborn embodiment.

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Prenatal Genetic Technologies and the Social Control of Pregnant Women: A Review of the Key Issues

Cited by 15 publications

References 103 publications

Gendered Triple Standard and Biomedical Management of Perinatal and Maternal Opioid Use Disorder in the United States

Gendered Triple Standard and Biomedical Management of Perinatal and Maternal Opioid Use Disorder in the United States

Risky Mothers and the Normalcy Project

Configuring Maternal, Preborn and Infant Embodiment

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