Research Catalog

Making women pay : the hidden costs of fetal rights / Rachel Roth.

Title: Making women pay : the hidden costs of fetal rights / Rachel Roth.
Author: Roth, Rachel.
Publication: Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2000.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Not available - Please for assistance.	Text	Request in advance	KF481 .R67 2000	Off-site

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Details

Description

xii, 246 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

In her powerful and important book, Rachel Roth brings a new perspective to the debate over fetal rights. She clearly delineates the threat to women's equality posed by the new concept of "maternal-fetal conflict, " an idea central to the fetal rights movement in which women and fetuses are seen as having interests that are diametrically opposed.
Once backed primarily by anti-abortion activists, fetal fights claims are now promoted by a wide range of interest groups in American society. Government and corporate policies to define and enforce fetal rights have become commonplace. Not only pregnant women are affected by these developments, as all women are considered "potentially pregnant" for much of their lives.
Roth begins by placing fetal rights politics in historical and comparative context and by tracing the emergence of the notion of fetal rights. Against a backdrop of gripping stories about actual women, she reviews the difficulties fetal rights claims create for women in the areas of employment, health care, and drug and alcohol regulation. She looks at court cases and state legislation over a period of two decades beginning in 1973, the year of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Her exhaustive research shows how judicial decisions and public policies that grant fetuses rights tend to displace women as claimants, as recipients of needed services, and ultimately as citizens.
When a corporation, medical authority', or the state asserts or accepts rights claims on behalf of a fetus, the usual justification involves improving the chance of a healthy birth. This strategy, Roth persuasively argues, is not necessary to achieve the goal of a healthy birth, is oftencounterproductive to it, and always undermines women's equal standing.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-229) and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Contents

How women pay for fetal rights -- Backlash and continuity: The political trajectory of fetal rights -- Fighting fetal protection policies: Women and corporate risk management I -- Overcoming discrimination: Women and corporate risk management II -- "No less than ravishment": Forcing medical intervention on pregnant women -- Behaving badly: Punishing women for conduct during pregnancy -- The costs of inequality.

ISBN

0801436079 (cloth)

LCCN

^^^99044982^

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library