Proving Pregnancy: Gender, Law, and Medical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America

Proving Pregnancy explores how women in the United States lost control over reproduction to male medical and legal professionals from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries, with community-based female knowledge playing a crucial role in prosecutions for infanticide in the first half of the century. As the century progressed, women accused of the crime were increasingly subject to the scrutiny of white male legal and medical experts.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 246 pages
Publication date: 06 September 2022
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

In the late eighteenth to late nineteenth centuries, the United States witnessed a concerning trend of infanticide cases, where women, regardless of their race or status, gradually lost control over reproduction to male medical and legal professionals. This phenomenon, documented in the book "Proving Pregnancy," explores how Black and white women, enslaved and free, were subjected to the scrutiny of male experts who held prevailing notions about the inferior mental and physical capacities of women and Black people.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, community-based female knowledge played a pivotal role in prosecutions for infanticide. Midwives, neighbors, healers, and relatives, who were more familiar with an accused woman's intimate life, pregnancy circumstances, and potential motives for infanticide, were better equipped to provide testimony than any man. However, as the century progressed, women accused of infanticide were increasingly subjected to the scrutiny of white male legal and medical experts who had received education in institutions that reinforced these notions.

As Reconstruction came to an end, the carceral state expanded, granting federal and state regulatory power precedence over local institutions. This shift placed all women's bodies at the mercy of male doctors, judges, and juries, in ways that had not been seen before. Moreover, the medical profession instituted new legal regulations that restricted access to knowledge of the female body to white men.

Felicity M. Turner's book "Proving Pregnancy" sheds light on how the medical profession, at a time when the federal government expanded formal civil and political rights to formerly enslaved people, instituted new legal regulations that further restricted women's access to knowledge of their bodies. This transformation not only undermined women's autonomy but also perpetuated harmful stereotypes and biases that persisted throughout the nineteenth century and beyond.

Understanding the historical context of infanticide cases in the United States is crucial in recognizing the ongoing struggles for reproductive rights and autonomy. It highlights the need for continued advocacy and activism to ensure that women's bodies are treated with respect and dignity and that they have control over their own reproductive health.

Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781469669700