A searing study of how modern reproductive politics shapes women's bodily agency Pregnancy indisputably takes place within a woman's body. But as reproductive power finds its way into the hands of medical professionals, lobbyists, and policymakers, the geographies of pregnancy are shifting, and the boundaries need to be redrawn, argues Laura R. Woliver. The Political Geographies of Pregnancy is a vigorous analysis of the ways modern reproductive politics are shaped by long-standing debates on abortion and adoption, surrogacy arrangements, new reproductive technologies, medical surveillance, and the mapping of the human genome. Across a politically charged backdrop of reproductive issues, Woliver exposes strategies that claim to uphold the best interests of children, families, and women but in reality complicate women's struggles to have control over their own bodies. Utilizing feminist standpoint theory and promoting a feminist ethic of care, Woliver looks at abortion politics, modern adoption laws that cater to male-headed families, regulations that allow the state to monitor pregnant women but not always provide care for them, and the power structures behind the seemingly benign world of egg-selling and surrogate parenting. She also considers the potentially staggering political implications of mapping the human genome, and the exclusion of women's perspectives in discussions about legislation and advancements in reproductive technologies.

The sites, spaces and subjects of reproduction are distinctly geographical. Reproductive geographies span different scales - body, home, local, national, global - and movements across space. This book expands our understanding of the socio-cultural and spatial aspects of fertility, pregnancy and birth. The chapters directly address global perspectives, the future of reproductive politics and state-focused approaches to the politicisation of fertility, pregnancy and birth. The book provides up-to-date explorations on the changing landscapes of reproduction, including the expansion of reproductive technologies, such as surrogacy and intrauterine insemination. Contributions in this book focus on phenomenologically-inspired accounts of women’s lived experience of pregnancy and birth, the biopolitics of birth and citizenship, the material histories of reproductive tissues as "scientific objects" and engagements with public health and development policy. This is an essential resource for upper-level undergraduates and graduates studying topics such as Sociology, Geographies of Gender, Women’s Studies and Anthropology of Health and Medicine.

A sweeping chronicle of women's battles for reproductive freedomReproductive politics in the United States has always been about who has the power to decide--lawmakers, the courts, clergy, physicians, or the woman herself. Authorities have rarely put women's needs and interests at the center of these debates. Instead, they have created reproductive laws and policies to solve a variety of social and political problems, with outcomes that affect the lives of different groups of women differently.Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised "breeding" schemes, when the US government took indigenous children from their families in the nineteenth century, and when doctors pressured Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Tracing the main plot lines of women's reproductive lives, the leading historian Rickie Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the effort to control sex and pregnancy in America over time.Revisiting these issues after more than a decade, this revised edition of Pregnancy and Power reveals how far the reproductive justice movement has come, and the renewed struggles it faces in the present moment. Even after nearly a half-century of "reproductive rights," a cascade of new laws and policies limits access and prescribes punishments for many people trying to make their own reproductive decisions. In this edition, Solinger traces the contemporary rise of reproductive consumerism and the politics of "free market" health care as economic inequality continues to expand in the US, revealing the profound limits of "choice" and the continued need for the reproductive justice framework.

"A chronicle of women's battles for reproductive freedom throughout American history, Pregnancy and Power explores the many forces - social, racial, economic, and political - that have shaped women's reproductive lives in the United States." "Leading historian Rickie Solinger argues that a woman's control over her body involves much more than the right to choose an abortion. Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, when the U.S. government took Indian children from their families in the nineteenth century, and when doctors pressed Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Pregnancy and Power is filled with powerful accounts of the fights women have waged in this country to control their bodies and their destinies against anti-miscegenation laws, labor laws, anti-contraception laws, and recent welfare reform laws that punish poor women for having children."--BOOK JACKET.

From Outrage to Action examines the rise and fall of grass-roots interest groups through in-depth analyses of four incidents that mobilized citizens around local injustices. In one case, a local judge declared a five-year-old sexual assault victim a "particularly promiscuous young lady". In another, an innocent black man died in police custody. In the third, a man with a criminal record was charged with murdering a ten-year-old girl, and in the last a judge commented during a juvenile sentencing that rape is a normal reaction to the way women dress. Through in-depth interviews with activists, Laura Woliver examines these community actions, studying the groups involved and linking her conclusions to larger questions of political power and the impact of social movements. Group successes and failures are explained through analysis of fluid social movements and the role of religion, class, gender, and race. Woliver found that activists unprepared for the ostracism and conflict resulting from their dissent retreated from public life, while those who identified with alternative communities avoided self-blame and maintained their political commitments. She relates the community responses in these cases to those in the case of confessed mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer and in the beating by Los Angeles police officers of Rodney King. Her findings will make fascinating reading for those interested in the rise and fall of grass-roots interest groups, the nature of dissent, and the reasons why people volunteer countless hours, sometimes in the face of community opposition and isolation, to dedicate themselves to a cause. The four ad hoc interest groups studied are the Committee to Recall Judge ArchieSimonson (Madison), the Coalition for Justice for Ernest Lacy (Milwaukee), Concerned Citizens for Children (Grant County, Wisconsin), and Citizens Taking Action (Madison).

Women from remarkably diverse religious, social, and political backgrounds made up the rank-and-file of anti-abortion activism. Empowered by--yet in many cases scared of--the changes wrought by feminism, they founded grassroots groups, developed now-familiar strategies and tactics, and gave voice to the movement's moral and political dimensions. Drawing on oral histories and interviews with prominent figures, Karissa Haugeberg examines American women 's fight against abortion. Beginning in the 1960s, she looks at Marjory Mecklenburg's attempt to shift the attention of anti-abortion leaders from the rights of fetuses to the needs of pregnant women. Moving forward she traces the grassroots work of Catholic women, including Juli Loesch and Joan Andrews, and their encounters with the influx of evangelicals into the movement. She also looks at the activism of evangelical Protestant Shelley Shannon, a prominent pro-life extremist of the 1990s. Throughout, Haugeberg explores important questions such as the ways people fused religious conviction with partisan politics, activists' rationalizations for lethal violence, and how women claimed space within an unshakably patriarchal movement.

Breastfeeding Rights in the United States shows that the right to breastfeed in this country exists only in a negative sense: you can do it unless someone takes you to court. Kedrowski and Lipscomb catalog and analyze all the laws, policies, judicial opinions, cultural mores, and public attitudes that bear on breastfeeding in America. They then explore the classic double bind: social norms promulgated by the medical and public health establishment say breast is best; but social practices in the workplace and in public spaces make breastfeeding difficult. Aggravating the double bind is the prominence of the breast in American culture as a sexual object. The double bind creates coercively structured choices that are incompatible with the meaningful exercise of rights. The authors conclude that the solution to this problem requires new theory and new strategy. They posit a new democratic, feminist theory of the breastfeeding right that is predicated on the following distinctions: DT It is not a right to breastfeed, but a right to choose to breastfeed. DT It is a woman's right to choose, not a baby's right to be breastfeed. DT It is a right, not a duty. The authors predict that framing the breastfeeding right in this way provides the basis for a new strategic coalition between breastfeeding advocates and liberal feminists, who have historically been wary of one another's rhetoric. Breastfeeding Rights in the United States represents an important advance toward policy change.