Winner of the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the American Sociological Association; Sex and Gender Section 2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
An important work documenting how the criminal justice system polices women's reproductive capacity
The intense policing of women’s reproductive capacity places women’s health and human rights in great peril. Poor women are pressured to undergo sterilization. Women addicted to illicit drugs risk arrest for carrying their pregnancies to term. Courts, child welfare, and law enforcement agencies fail to recognize the efforts of battered and incarcerated women to care for their children. Pregnant inmates are subject to inhumane practices such as shackling during labor and poor prenatal care. And decades after Roe, the criminalization of certain procedures and regulation of abortion providers still obstruct women’s access to safe and private abortions.
In this important work, Jeanne Flavin looks beyond abortion to document how the law and the criminal justice system police women’s rights to conceive, to be pregnant, and to raise their children. Through vivid and disturbing case studies, Flavin shows how the state seeks to establish what a “good woman” and “fit mother” should look like and whose reproduction is valued. With a stirring conclusion that calls for broad-based measures that strengthen women’s economic position , choice-making, autonomy, sexual freedom, and health care, Our Bodies, Our Crimes is a battle cry for all women in their fight to be fully recognized as human beings. At its heart, this book is about the right of a woman to be a healthy and valued member of society independent of how or whether she reproduces.
Jeanne Flavin is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Fordham Universityand co-editor of Race, Gender, and Punishment: From Colonialism to the War on Terror. She is also a member of the board of directors for National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), a non-profit organization which protects the civil rights of women. Proceeds from this book will be shared with NAPW.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Part I Beginning
1 "Race Criminals": Reproductive Rights in America 11
4 "Baby-Killers": Neonaticide and Infant Abandonment 74
Part III Bearing
5 "Innocent Preborn Victims": Fetal Protectionism and Pregnant Women 95
6 "Liars and Whiners": Incarcerated Women's Right to Reproductive Health 119
Part IV Mothering
7 "Bad Mothers": Incarcerated Women's Ties to Their Children 139
8 "Asking for It": Battered Women and Child Custody 164
Conclusion: Being 182
Notes 191
Bibliography 263
Acknowledgments 297
Index 299
About the Author 307
What People are Saying About This
From the Publisher
Flavin set out to examine the policing of women's reproduction in various contexts, and she succeeds in doing so with a text that is exceptionally well researched and written in a style that is both readable and eloquent. This book would make a fine addition to a course dedicated to social-justice issues in women's lives."-Feminist Formations,
“Illuminates the dark corners of a public polity that holds pregnant women accountable for all aspects and outcomes of their reproduction without offering the compassion, education, or control necessary to produce happy endings—or beginnings.” -Jennifer Reich,author of Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System
“At last, a book that recognizes that reproductive rights encompass more than abortion rights. Our Bodies, Our Crimes covers all of the essential and highly controversial topics regarding the intersection of reproductive rights and criminal justice.” -Claire M. Renzetti,co-author of Women, Men, and Society
“Our Bodies, Our Crimes is a beautifully written and well researched book that makes an original and important contribution to the emerging social science literature on reproductive politics. I strongly recommend it.” -Carole Joffe,author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe v Wade
“Our Bodies, Our Crimes is one of the most compelling books I've read in recent years. Flavin’s writing is exquisite and her documentation is careful and thorough. Whether informing the reader about reproductive freedom, battered women, or incarcerated women, she does so even-handedly and ably captures the complexities and depravities that real women and girls encounter every day in this country. Flavin draws on high profile cases, unknown cases, laws, policies, history, criminology research and much more to explain how her cases are decided by race, gender, class, and sexuality. Her book will help students, legal professionals, gender and legal scholars, and lay people to understand the common themes and threads of violence against women and girls and the sexism, racism, and classism in labeling girls and women deviant and criminals.” -Joanne Belknap,author of The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice
