Main description:

This book is inspired by a statement released by the World Health Organization directed at preventing and eliminating disrespectful and abusive treatment during facility-based childbirth.

Exploring the nature of vulnerability during childbirth, and the factors which make childbirth a site for violence and control, the book looks at the role of law in the regulation of professional intervention in childbirth. The WHO statement and other published work on 'mistreatment', 'obstetric violence', 'birth trauma', 'birth rape', and 'dehumanised care' all point to the presence of vulnerability, violence, and control in childbirth. This collected edition explores these issues in the experience of those giving birth, and for those providing obstetric services. It further offers insights regarding legal avenues of redress in the context of this emerging area of concern. Using violence, vulnerability, and control as a lens through which to consider multiple facets of the law, the book brings together innovative research from an interdisciplinary selection of authors.

The book will appeal to scholars of law and legal academics, specifically in relation to tort, criminal law, medical law, and human rights. It will also be of interest to postgraduate scholars of medical ethics and those concerned with gender studies more broadly.

Contents:

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