From Reproductive Rights to Responsibilization: Fashioning Liberal Subjects in Mexico City's New Public Sector Abortion Program

Singer, Elyse Ona

doi:10.1111/maq.12321

Cited by 33 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Laws and their enactment ‘are significant because they … reflect dominant social concerns and values’ (Melhuus : 3). Singer's () research on newly legalised abortion in Mexico City, for instance, demonstrates that this outward expansion of reproductive rights essentially reiterated long‐standing state and social values around reproductive responsibility. Undergoing a state‐funded abortion through Mexico City's public abortion program is accompanied by a lesson in responsible sexual practices intended to prevent (another) unwanted pregnancy.…”

Section: Local Moralities Of Assisted Conceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Doctors as moral pioneers: Negotiated boundaries of assisted conception in Colombia

Shaw

2019

Sociology Health & Illness

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New biotechnologies such as assisted conception are socially embedded artefacts that raise context‐specific ethical, moral and social anxieties. In contexts where the regulations of these profitable developments are limited or ambiguous, and competition between private facilities is high, individual doctors become morally and socially responsible for determining the parameters of administering such therapies. Ethnographic research at two private fertility centres in Colombia reveals that doctors do not determine boundaries based on monetary gain but rather personal morals, social norms and professional obligations. Medical professionals hold diverse perceptions of assisted conception, and often struggle to make decisions regarding who should access such therapies, who are ideal gamete donors and the fate of extra embryos. The complexity of these perceptions applied in a context of limited regulation and the competition of private medicine impacts the praxis of assisted conception. As doctors determine the boundaries of their practice they not only create variation between clinical practices, but also make moral decisions regarding who should be parents, how families should be formed and the significance of embryos. Thus, in navigating their everyday practices, doctors also shape the social world.

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Section: Local Moralities Of Assisted Conceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Doctors as moral pioneers: Negotiated boundaries of assisted conception in Colombia

Shaw

2019

Sociology Health & Illness

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“…Medical anthropologists have shown that in some cases, women who are not able to fit into ideal reproductive behavioral models often ignore their own difficult experiences in favor of support for the idealized reproductive behaviors. These women often understand that they've experienced difficult circumstances but have internalized the narrative that shames them for not partaking in ideal reproductive behaviors (Singer 2017;Gammeltoft 2007). My research shows something slightly different.…”

Section: Amelia: Fractured Carementioning

confidence: 82%

“…But if my research shows anything, it is that this discourse is not necessarily a source of shame for women who do not fit specific models of reproductive behavior, like other anthropologists have found (Singer 2017;Gammeltoft 2007). For the women in my research, the local, wellfunded, healthcare system provided them with the resources they needed to have a positive pregnancy and birth.…”

Section: Global Flows National Ideologies and Maternity Care Within mentioning

confidence: 85%

“…This type of flexibility, however, was not extended by women in Florence to their assessment of women in the South, whose use of cesarean sections was seen as a negative aspect of both their decisions and the healthcare system they lived in. Similarly, Gammeltoft (2007) and Singer (2017) contested ways in which women partially accept criticism of their use of reproductive technologies. The difference between these research populations, however, is the relative privilege of each of the groups.…”

Section: Midwifery-based Carementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For women in Tuscany, however, relative privilege allowed them to simultaneously maintain the importance of sociality and maintain the importance of rationalist reproductive behaviors of others. AsGammeltoft (2007) andSinger (2017) have shown, women are not always able to avoid moral judgments about their reproductive behaviors, suggesting that privilege provides a level of protection from not partaking in idealized reproductive behaviors.The effort through which women went to maintain these relationships are a testament to the significance of these relationships to women's experiences in pregnancy. By moving away from a focus on technology to a focus on women's sociality surrounding reproduction(Faria 2017;Allison 2011; Rapp 1999), I expand the understanding of sociality to encompass a much wider range of women's activities.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Women’s Experiences With Maternity Care and Medical Discourse In Florence, Italy

Wallerstedt¹

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This dissertation is based on ethnographic research in Florence, Italy. The primary focus of this research is based on a comparison of medical discourse from Italian State documents with women’s experiences during pregnancy and childbirth in Italy. Mirroring trends throughout the developed world, Italy has maintained high rates of cesarean sections since the turn of the century. Italy’s unique political and cultural history has made Tuscany one of the best regions for maternity care within a country with significant regional variability. This dissertation looks at historical and current cultural trends to understand the ways in which women experience high-quality maternity care in Florence. This dissertation interrogates women’s experiences during pregnancy and childbirth through the theoretical lenses of political philosophy, agency and practice theory, and the medicalization of reproduction. This dissertation provides new avenues through which to draw connections between these three social theories. Medical discourse in the State documents demonstrates the ways in which women’s subjectivities and experiences are erased in an effort create a population upon which it is (theoretically) easier to enact interventions. Discourse ignores women’s agency in favor of implying that doctors and healthcare professionals are far more important actors in pregnancy and childbirth. But Italian women assert their own agency against medicalized birth through their reproductive socialities. By making connections with other mothers and midwives, women find support beyond medicalized models of maternity care. Local hospitals and healthcare clinics become sites that foster reproductive sociality. Women seek out care from healthcare professionals, primarily midwives, not due to their medical competence but due to their ability to create relationships with their patients. Midwives are part of what makes hospitals the ideal place for birth; a safe haven from the potential risk of birth. This idealization of birth, however, often gives way to less than desired care, demonstrating the fractures and inconsistencies in the way midwifery-based care is perceived. These fractures and inconsistencies are also seen in how women conceive of healthcare throughout the country. Women themselves simultaneously value and devalue their own socialities. Women’s discussion of the Italian healthcare system demonstrates how deep-seated ideologies of rationalist medical behaviors and stereotypes about the South. Women afford flexibility in departing from ideal modes of birth in their own decisions, but do not afford women the same flexibility in the South. Medicalized rhetoric seeps into deep seated beliefs about the South, demonstrating that women’s own positive experiences are not always valued as a means to achieving quality healthcare. Through analyzing the connection medical discourse and women’s reproductive sociality, I demonstrate the tenuousness with which experience is valued.

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The Anthropology of Reproduction

Andaya¹,

Kotni²

2022

A Companion to Medical Anthropology

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From Reproductive Rights to Responsibilization: Fashioning Liberal Subjects in Mexico City's New Public Sector Abortion Program

Cited by 33 publications

References 46 publications

Doctors as moral pioneers: Negotiated boundaries of assisted conception in Colombia

Doctors as moral pioneers: Negotiated boundaries of assisted conception in Colombia

Women’s Experiences With Maternity Care and Medical Discourse In Florence, Italy

The Anthropology of Reproduction

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