“…This common belief has contributed to-and still does contribute to-the lack of recognition of women as accountable agents in decision-making, due in part to the lack of recognition of their epistemic agency (Freeman 2015). Consequently, violations of fundamental rights to mental and physical integrity and informed consent have been committed and widely denounced (Pickles and Herring 2020).…”
Section: Who Is the Patient? Maternal-fetal Relationship In Surrogate...mentioning
From the beginning of the practice of surrogate pregnancy, ethical approaches to it have included several dimensions. Central issues such as surrogates’ genuine autonomy, the risk of exploitation of people in vulnerable situations, or the legitimacy of the commercialization of the body have kept this debate alive for more than three decades. Among all the conflicts, those related to healthcare professionals involved in the surrogacy process have been less frequently addressed. Which patient(s) should they protect? Whose interests should they preserve, the surrogate mother's or the intended parents’? Are there differences in healthcare provision between regular pregnant women and those who are going to relinquish their babies? Is adequate compliance with the ethical standards of the caregiver–patient relationship possible? In this article, I will address these questions to identify interests and practices at stake in the healthcare context, where an important part of the surrogacy process occurs.
“…This common belief has contributed to-and still does contribute to-the lack of recognition of women as accountable agents in decision-making, due in part to the lack of recognition of their epistemic agency (Freeman 2015). Consequently, violations of fundamental rights to mental and physical integrity and informed consent have been committed and widely denounced (Pickles and Herring 2020).…”
Section: Who Is the Patient? Maternal-fetal Relationship In Surrogate...mentioning
From the beginning of the practice of surrogate pregnancy, ethical approaches to it have included several dimensions. Central issues such as surrogates’ genuine autonomy, the risk of exploitation of people in vulnerable situations, or the legitimacy of the commercialization of the body have kept this debate alive for more than three decades. Among all the conflicts, those related to healthcare professionals involved in the surrogacy process have been less frequently addressed. Which patient(s) should they protect? Whose interests should they preserve, the surrogate mother's or the intended parents’? Are there differences in healthcare provision between regular pregnant women and those who are going to relinquish their babies? Is adequate compliance with the ethical standards of the caregiver–patient relationship possible? In this article, I will address these questions to identify interests and practices at stake in the healthcare context, where an important part of the surrogacy process occurs.
“…In any other situation, it would be a criminal offense to insert fingers into someone's vagina without explicit and continuous consent (Pickles and Herring 2020). In her discussion of the prison industrial complex, Davis (2003, 63) cites a scene of disciplinary violence in the women's prison: Every woman who has ever been on the rock, or in the old house of detention, can tell you about it.…”
Obstetric violence, a term coined by activists in Latin America to describe violence during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, is a controversial feminist term in global health policymaking as well as in obstetric and midwifery practice and research. We reflect on the term both theoretically and autoethnographically to demonstrate its feminist value in addressing the problem of violence as embedded within the obstetric institution.
We argue that obstetric violence as an activist and critical feminist concept can only be effective for change when it is clearly understood as institutionalized intersectional violence. Therefore, we propose an abolitionist framework for further study. Through this lens, we refract the concept of obstetric violence as institutionalized, intersectional, and racializing violence by (1) making an abolitionist historiography of the obstetric institution, and (2) centering anti‐Black obstetric racism as the anchor point of obstetric violence, where the afterlife of slavery, racial capitalism, the impact of systemic racism, and the consequences of patriarchal biopolitics come together.
Abolition provides a unique approach to study obstetric violence since it not only refuses and dismantles violent institutions, but specifically focuses on building futures out of existing alternative practices toward a life‐affirming world of care. We locate the abolitionist futures of maternity care in Black, Indigenous, and independent doula and midwifery practices.
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