Childbirth, Vulnerability and Law

Dr Camilla Pickles is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. She explores issues related to pregnancy and childbirth, and has explored themes including abortion, obstetric violence, foetal personhood, involuntary sterilisations, and human rights within the contexts of pregnancy continuation and during labour and childbirth. She is currently leading a project titled ‘Obstetric Violence and the Law’ and is the author of several contributions, the most recent being Pregnancy Law in South Africa: Between Reproductive Autonomy and Foetal Interests. Professor Jonathan Herring is a DM Wolfe-Clarendon Fellow in Law and the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford. He works on themes related to criminal, family, and medical law and focuses on exploring how the law interacts with the important things in life such as love, family, friendship, and intimacy. Aside from authoring leading texts on criminal, medical, and family law, Jonathan regularly contributes to larger, challenging debates; some of his most recent contributions can be found in Vulnerability, Childhood and the Law; Aging, Gender and Family Law; and Identity, Personhood and the Law.

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Introduction



CAMILLA PICKLES AND JONATHAN HERRING

1 ‘Amigas, sisters: We’re being gaslighted’: obstetric violence and epistemic injustice



SARA COHEN SHABOT

2 Practices of silencing: birth, marginality and epistemic violence



RACHELLE CHADWICK

3 Posttraumatic stress disorder following childbirth



ANTJE HORSCH AND SUSAN GARTHUS-NIEGEL

4 Identifying the wrong in obstetric violence: lessons from domestic abuse



JONATHAN HERRING

5 Midwives and midwifery: the need for courage to reclaim vocation for respectful care



SOO DOWNE AND NANCY STONE

6 Health system accountability in South Africa: a driver of violence against women?



JESSICA RUCELL

7 Human rights law and challenging dehumanisation in childbirth: a practitioner’s perspective



ELIZABETH PROCHASKA

8 Leaving women behind: the application of evidence-based guidelines, law, and obstetric violence by omission



CAMILLA PICKLES

9 Childbirth, consent, and information about options and risks



LISA FORSBERG

10 Court-authorised obstetric intervention: insight and capacity, a tale of loss



SAMANTHA HALLIDAY

11 Obstetric violence through a fiduciary lens



ELIZABETH KUKURA

12 Reflections on criminalising obstetric violence: a feminist perspective



KAREN BRENNAN



Afterword



EMILY JACKSON

Index