The Pregnant Body as a Public Body: An Occasion for Community Care, Instrumental Coercion, and a Singular Collectivity

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Second, “public” stands in opposition to “private, " and thus what is public is “open to general observation.” This might seem like a strange way to think through pregnancy given its links to intimacy and family. Nevertheless, it accurately calls attention to the visibility of the pregnant body, a body that is made increasingly transparent with the use of technologies such as sonograms and through the widespread imagery of the fetus within the womb. In this sense, then, the pregnant body represents less the woman carrying the child than the child itself. The woman is instrumental to the baby and so is properly treated as an instrument. Touching and inquiring about the pregnant body would not be unlike kicking a car’s tires. The second section of this chapter examines the potentially problematic aspects of the community interest in the pregnant body, especially when it leads to a coercive governmentality or a reduction of the woman to a womb.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationPhilosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering
Subtitle of host publicationMaternal Subjects
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages178-190
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9781136511233
ISBN (Print)9780415891875
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2013

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Arts and Humanities
  • General Social Sciences

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