"I did not lose my baby... my baby just died": Twenty-first-century discourses of miscarriage in political and historical context

South Atlantic Quarterly

Volumn 110, Issue 4, 2011, Pages 849-865

  Kevin, Catherine ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 80054122414     PISSN: 00382876     EISSN: 15278026     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00382876-1382285     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. See Karen Newman, Fetal Positions: Individualism, Science, Visuality (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996);
2. and Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, "Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction", Feminist Studies 13. 2(1987):263-92.
3. Crimes Amendment (Grievous Bodily Harm) Act 2005, no. 14; assented to by the New South Wales Parliament, May 12, 2005, www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/ num-act/cabha2005n14394.pdf
4. Susannah Thompson, "'Awakened by Angels': Personal Narratives of Perinatal Death in Late Twentieth-Century Western Australia and Their Effect on Hospital Policies and Programmes", Studies in Western Australian History, no. 25(2007):166-80.
5. Regina v. King (2003) 59 NSWLR 472, 480; and Crimes Amendment (Grievous Bodily Harm) Act 2005.
6. Kerreen Reiger, Our Bodies, Our Babies: The Forgotten Women's Movement (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001). I have used Reiger's framework elsewhere to argue that in the 1970s and 1980s in Australia, the different interests of maternity reform movements and women's liberation were interpreted, in some cases accurately, as pitched against each other on questions of access to abortion and child care.
7. Catherine Kevin, "Maternity and Freedom: Australian Feminism Encounters with the Reproductive Body", Australian Feminist Studies 20. 46(2005):3-15.
8. Linda L. Layne, "Breaking the Silence: An Agenda for a Feminist Discourse of Pregnancy Loss", Feminist Studies 23. 2(1997):289-91.
9. This is unsurprising given the degree of media coverage received by women's risky behaviors, and this discrepancy in knowledge is apparent in interviews I have undertaken. See also Isabel Karpin, "Taking Care of the Health of the Pre-Conceived Embryo", in The Healthy Embryo, ed. Jeff Nisker et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 136-50;
10. and Barbara Duden, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn, trans. Lee Noinocki (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
11. Layne, "Breaking the Silence", 297, 300-304.
12. Lisa, "My Story", Miscarriage Association, www. miscarriageassociation.org.uk/ma2006/support/reflections/index.htm (accessed June 15, 2009).
13. Monica Dux, "Time to End Secrecy and Face the Anguish of Miscarriage", Sydney Morning Herald, January 19, 2009
14. which refers to Peggy Orenstein, "Mourning My Miscarriage", New York Times Magazine, April 21, 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/magazine/ mourning-my-miscarriage.html.
15. Lisa, "My Story", 3.
16. Kate Evans, "Miscarriage: The Loneliest Grief of All", Independent, January 27, 2009, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and- families/features/miscarriage-theloneliest-grief-of-all-1516750.html.
17. Catherine Ryan, "Lost", Overland, no. 192(2008):46.
18. Martina, "Hrozienko (Raisin): A Year On", Miscarriage Association, www.miscarriage association.org.uk/ma2006/support/reflections/ index.htm (accessed June 15, 2009).
19. Dux, "Time to End Secrecy"
20. Evans, "Miscarriage";
21. and Ryan, "Lost"
22. Martina, "Hrozienko", 3.
23. Razia, "A Blessing, a Heartache", Miscarriage Association, www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/ma2006/support/reflections/index.htm (accessed June 15, 2009).
24. Orenstein, "Mourning My Miscarriage"
25. Sheryl De Lacey, "Patients' Attitudes to Their Embryos and Their Destiny: Social Conditioning?" Best Practice and Research in Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology 21. 1(2007):101-12.
26. Rebecca Dean, "Erosion of Access to Abortion in the United States: Lessons for Australia", Deakin Law Review 12. 1(2007):123-66;
27. and Rebecca Stringer, "Fact, Fiction and the Foetus: Violence against Pregnant Women and the Politics of Abortion", Australian Feminist Law Journal, no. 25(2006):91-118.
28. Layne, "Breaking the Silence", 300-304.
29. Leslie J. Reagan, "From Hazard to Blessing to Tragedy: Representations of Miscarriage in Twentieth-Century America", Feminist Studies 29. 2(2003):367.
30. Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Support, www.sands.org.au/index.htm (accessed March 31, 2011);
31. Teddy Love Club Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, www.teddyloveclub.org. au (accessed March 31, 2011);
32. and Miscarriage Association, www.miscarriage association.org.uk (accessed March 31, 2011).
33. Bonnie Babes Foundation, www.bbf.org.au (accessed March 31, 2011).
34. Bonnie Babes, www.bbf.org.au/app/articles/articles/view/national-babies- day (this site no longer functional; accessed September 15, 2009).
35. Teddy Love Club Web site, www.teddyloveclub.org.au/index02.php?id= 19&pl=11 (accessed April 28, 2011).
36. SANDS, www.sands.org.au/objectives.htm (accessed March 31, 2011).
37. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, fifth ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), s.vv. 2 "abortion" and "miscarriage"
38. English Offences against the Person Act (1861; 24 and 25 Vict. c.100).
39. For example, see The Expectant Mother, by seven doctors and written under the auspices of the New Zealand Obstetrics and Gynaecology Association: New Zealand Obstetrics and Gynaecology Association, The Expectant Mother (Christchurch: Whitcomb and Tombs, 1953), 87.
40. Shorter Oxford Eng lish Dictionary, s.v. "miscarriage"
41. See, for example, Ellen Connolly, "Fatal Road Rage Driver Jailed", Sydney Morning Herald, February 28, 2003;
42. and Natasha Wallace, "Fit of Rage That Claimed an Unborn Baby's Life", Sydney Morning Herald, March 30, 2004.
43. Stringer, "Fact, Fiction and the Foetus", 114-16.
44. See Regina v. Sullivan and Lemay (1991) 63 CCC 3rd;
45. and Harrild v. Director of Proceedings (2003) 3 NZLR 289.
46. Unborn Victims of Violence Act (2004), Pub. L. 108-212.
47. See Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, "Monster Stories: Women Charged with Perinatal Endangerment", in Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture, ed. Faye Ginsburg and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990), 282-99.
48. Kristen Savell, "Is the 'Born Alive' Rule Outdated and Indefensible?" Sydney Law Review, 28. 4(2006):664.
49. Abortion Law Reform Act 2008, no. 58, assented to in Victorian Parliament, October 22, 2008, www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domino/Web-Notes/LDMS/ PubStatbook.nsf/f932b66241ecf1b7ca256e92000e23be/ BB2C8223617EB6A8CA2574EA001C130A/$FILE/08-58a.pdf (accessed April 28, 2011).
50. "Miscarriage Husband Slams NSW Premier", West, June 15, 2009.
51. "Inquiry into Miscarriage at Royal North Shore Hospital" (press release), NSW Health, October 26, 2007, www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/2007/ 20071026-01.html.
52. "Miscarriage Husband Slams NSW Premier"
53. See, for example, Kate Sikora, "Two Babies Lost in One Night in 'Worst Hospital, '" Daily Telegraph, September 28, 2007.
54. "RNS Doctor Slams Miscarriage Report", Sydney Morning Herald, November 1, 2007.