Women, Gender, and Politics

N05 - Reproductive Justice

Date: Jun 12 | Time: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Location: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 451

Chair/Président/Présidente : Valérie LaPointe (University of Edinburgh)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Jacquetta Newman (University of Western Ontario)

Reproductive (In)Justice? Vulnerabilization and the Persistent Undermining of Midwifery Practice in Ontario, Canada: Iris Bradford (Concordia University), Lindsay Larios (University of Manitoba)
Abstract: Historically and currently, the advancement of the midwifery profession has been linked with the broader advancement of reproductive equity and autonomy for birth givers (e.g., Daviss 2006). Moreover, scholars and advocates highlight the possibilities of midwifery’s client-centered, holistic approach to care for addressing the disproportionate obstetric violence and poor birthing outcomes experienced by racialized, Indigenous, gendered, and otherwise marginalized groups (Finestone and Stirbys 2018; Burton and Ariss 2014; Rigaud 2021). This study examines the current limits and possibilities of midwifery’s emancipatory claims in Ontario, Canada. The integration and self-regulation of Ontario midwives in 1994 has been celebrated as one of the most advanced and beneficial models for midwifery internationally, and is often used as a paradigmatic case for the sociological study of midwifery (e.g., Bourgeault 2006; MacDonald 2007). However, scholars and advocates have highlighted the contradictions of Ontario midwives’ inclusion into dominant health institutions where their care, value, and expertise has been persistently undermined by successive governments and their continued subordination to biomedical expertise (Spring 2020). Using the lens of “vulnerabilization”, we explore the effects produced by the systemic undermining of midwifery care, not only for midwives, but also for racialized and Indigenous communities, and undocumented migrants and those with precarious status. We argue that these challenges, including the pay equity/human rights dispute, the closure of a midwifery education program, and limited access to care, reflect and perpetuate the systemic marginalization of not only midwives, but entire communities. Though midwifery remains tied to its transformative promises, these ongoing struggles demonstrate the difficulty in simply maintaining midwifery’s current workforce, scope, and reach, let alone expanding access to groups that especially benefit from a midwifery approach to care.

Political Contestation and Rights Revision: Addressing Reproductive Injustice: Candace Johnson (University of Guelph)
Abstract: The field of birth is part of a reproductive borderland that contains a vast range of political and social contestations. In Canada, these contestations extend in many directions and cover topics such as “medicalization” of pregnancy and childbirth, overconsumption of medical intervention, idealization of normal birth (creating a “normal birth culture” (Reproductive Health Work Group, 2018: 15)), reproductive choice (including abortion), and informed consent. These examples rely on conceptions of individual autonomy and agency for their realization in practice. Other topics, such as birth alerts (the practice whereby child protective services notifies hospital authorities when a “high risk” maternal or reproductive subject is about to give birth) and involuntary sterilization, can be located in the shadowy areas of the borderlands and operationalize conceptions of reproductive justice. In this paper I will explore these contestations in order to demonstrate that reproductive borderlands are not just fraught political and policy spaces, but often polarized in terms of their rights orientations. The WHO (2018) recommends that birth care take a “holistic, human rights approach,” which suggests the integration of possessive, individual rights and reproductive justice approaches. However, state actors tend to focus on the former and avoid the latter, likely because reproductive justice frameworks demand attention to the (political) complexities of structural violence. In addition to the empirical examination of contestations, I will provide a theoretical rebuilding of reproductive rights and justice approaches as a way to further draw attention to problematic areas and contradictions, but also to present a more coherent theory for addressing reproductive injustice.