Childbirth, Vulnerability and Law

Dr Camilla Pickles is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. She explores issues related to pregnancy and childbirth, and has explored themes including abortion, obstetric violence, foetal personhood, involuntary sterilisations, and human rights within the contexts of pregnancy continuation and during labour and childbirth. She is currently leading a project titled ‘Obstetric Violence and the Law’ and is the author of several contributions, the most recent being Pregnancy Law in South Africa: Between Reproductive Autonomy and Foetal Interests.Professor Jonathan Herring is a DM Wolfe-Clarendon Fellow in Law and the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford. He works on themes related to criminal, family, and medical law and focuses on exploring how the law interacts with the important things in life such as love, family, friendship, and intimacy. Aside from authoring leading texts on criminal, medical, and family law, Jonathan regularly contributes to larger, challenging debates; some of his most recent contributions can be found in Vulnerability, Childhood and the Law; Aging, Gender and Family Law; and Identity, Personhood and the Law.

• AcknowledgementsContributorsIntroductionCAMILLA PICKLES AND JONATHAN HERRING1 ‘Amigas, sisters: We’re being gaslighted’: obstetric violence and epistemic injusticeSARA COHEN SHABOT2 Practices of silencing: birth, marginality and epistemic violenceRACHELLE CHADWICK3 Posttraumatic stress disorder following childbirthANTJE HORSCH AND SUSAN GARTHUS-NIEGEL4 Identifying the wrong in obstetric violence: lessons from domestic abuseJONATHAN HERRING5 Midwives and midwifery: the need for courage to reclaim vocation for respectful care SOO DOWNE AND NANCY STONE6 Health system accountability in South Africa: a driver of violence against women?JESSICA RUCELL7 Human rights law and challenging dehumanisation in childbirth: a practitioner’s perspectiveELIZABETH PROCHASKA8 Leaving women behind: the application of evidence-based guidelines, law, and obstetric violence by omissionCAMILLA PICKLES9 Childbirth, consent, and information about options and risksLISA FORSBERG10 Court-authorised obstetric intervention: insight and capacity, a tale of lossSAMANTHA HALLIDAY11 Obstetric violence through a fiduciary lensELIZABETH KUKURA12 Reflections on criminalising obstetric violence: a feminist perspectiveKAREN BRENNANAfterwordEMILY JACKSONIndex