There have been many movements in history to improve women’s rights. Most of them have succeeded. For example, women can now vote because of a social movement. But one aspect of women’s lives is still very unjust and a social movement has not yet been made to solve it. Women are under reproductive control and have very little discretion over how they choose to act while pregnant. As soon as a woman becomes pregnant, she is under extreme scrutiny by the public. Every single choice the pregnant woman makes is judged by people around her. Whether the woman wants to drink alcohol, smoke, use medication, or give birth naturally, becomes a decision that has to be approved by society.
Susan Bordo, in her piece “Unbearable Weight,” she discusses how women loose their subjectivity as soon as they are pregnant. In this post, I am discussing the injustice of women being publicly scrutinized for the choices they make while pregnant.
Bordo talks about how women are seen as an “incubator” (pg. 79). As a result of this stigma, women are temporarily viewed as less important than the fetus they are carrying. While mother is pregnant, the fetus is more important than she is. This causes many problems for the mother in medical situations. For example, if a women is in critical condition and on life support while pregnant, the health of the baby is far more important and valued compared to the mother’s. Lawrence Nelson says, that “compelling pregnant women to undergo medical treatment sets an unsavory precedent for further invasions of a women’s privacy and bodily integrity,” (Bordo, pg. 81). Women are subjected to suffering through life-support and other painful and stressful medical procedures if they are pregnant. This is only because the women looses her subjectivity when they are pregnant and the baby gains it. The fact that the women looses her voice and her choice of how to treat her own body is extremely unjust.
It is also unjust that women have to be under constant surveillance by the public while pregnant. Margaret Atwood says, in her piece Handmaid’s Tale “The prospect of courts literally managing the lives of pregnant women and extensively intruding into their daily activities is frightening and antithetical to the fundamental role that freedom of actions plays in our society,” (Bordo pg. 81). Because women have lost their subjectivity, they have also lost their right to make choices for themselves. For example, in Wyoming in 1990, a woman was “charged by the police with the crime of drinking while pregnant and was prosecuted for felony child abuse,” (Bordo pg. 82). Because of legal actions like this, and many others, shaming pregnant women has become a national obsession. Our society is obsessive about what pregnant women are doing with their bodies because people fear what the negative repercussions are for the fetus. People have become so concerned with the environment of the fetus that they are willing to subject the pregnant mother to extreme scrutiny. Bordo explains that everything in relation to the fetus, whether it be the father smoking or the mother driving a car, can directly effect the fetus. One mother, who believed it was safe to drink one glass a day talks about her personal experience being judged by the public: “I’ve always made it a point to read everything i could find about alcohol in pregnancy. I felt guilty enough as it was for ordering the drink…They tried to make me feel like I was a child abuser,” (Bordo pg. 83). This personal account proves that people are more concerned about how pregnant women act, not about the actual effect that the women’s behaviors will have on the fetus. For example, Bordo says when discussion the personal account I mentioned earlier, “Most poignant about this quote is the woman’s internal sense of transgression, which I interpret as an indication, not of her recognition of the actual threat of one drink to her fetus’ health, but of the extraordinary levels of vigilance now expected of and taken upon themselves by pregnant women,” (Bordo pg. 83).
Proving that society is obsessed with monitoring and surveilling what women do while pregnant, are multiple ads and organizations function for the sole purpose of educating the public of the dangers of drinking while pregnant. This advertisement for example, has no scientific evidence that the babies were harmed, but it is created to shame women who drink while pregnant and to make the general public concerned for babies who's mothers consume alcohol.
The website www.nofas.org is created to do just that. Their mission statement reads, “NOFAS seeks to create a global community free of alcohol-exposed pregnancies and a society supportive of individuals already living with FASD. NOFAS effectively increases public awareness and mobilizes grassroots action in diverse communities and represents the interests of persons with FASD and their caregivers as the liaison to researchers and policymakers. By ensuring that FASD is broadly recognized as a developmental disability, NOFAS strives to reduce the stigma and improve the quality of life for affected individuals and families,” (NOFAS, 2014). Their slogan, which is on almost every publication they release reads, “Alcohol and Pregnancy. No safe amount. No safe time. No safe alcohol. Period,” (NOFAS, 2014). It is organizations like NOFAS, (National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) that feeds the national obsession of scrutinizing pregnant women. The ads they distribute and the information they share to the public feeds the injustice of women losing their subjectivity. Now when we see pregnant women in public we question their diligence in following the said “rules” that society has implemented on pregnant women.
It is unfair and unjust. We have no right to judge what pregnant are doing and it is even more unjust that women are losing their subjectivity at the moment of conception. Women are still human beings. They deserve to keep the right to make decisions for the wellbeing of their bodies-and the bodies of the babies they carry. The public, both the general public and the medical community, should no longer see the pregnant woman as an incubator but rather a mother, a woman, and a human being with rights.
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