 | Alana Cattapan Assistant Professor - University of Saskatchewan |
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03.07.2017-28.07.2017
Perpetually, Potentially Pregnant: The Emergence of
There are five objectives for this project.:
1) To trace the historical emergence of “women of childbearing age” (or “women of reproductive age”) as a specific group addressed in clinical research and public health policy. This is a key substantive contribution of this project, and will involve tracking the use of the concept of “women of childbearing age” in public health initiatives and medical research over time.
2) To identify the relationship between how the concept of “women of childbearing age” emerged in clinical research and how it emerged in public health policy initiatives. To this end, I will demonstrate how clinical research and public health policy have informed one another in a feedback loop that legitimates the view that “women of reproductive” age are a group to be investigated (in clinical research) and governed (in public health policy).
3) To contest the conceptualization of “women of childbearing age” as a group. There are many women of reproductive age who do not have heterosexual sexual intercourse, who may be infertile, or who are simply uninterested in having children, for whom advisories about preconception care simply do not apply. This project will contest and problematize the assumption that women of childbearing age are a homogenous group that are potentially pregnant.
4) To contest the assumption that women alone are responsible for fetal health. Research and policy related to fetal health focus largely on women’s bodies and behaviours to the exclusion of other critical actors, including for example, men, the state, and industries producing alcohol, toxic chemicals, and other agents of risk. This project will highlight and challenge the ongoing emphasis on women as the gatekeepers of fetal health.
5) To develop key considerations for research and health policy that at once considers reproductive autonomy and transgenerational public health. The public health goal of achieving healthy pregnancies is not to be ignored, and there is mounting research that transgenerational and epigenetic factors are important to the health of children not yet conceived. Drawing on feminist scholarship on relational and reproductive autonomy, I will identify key considerations for an ethical framework for relevant clinical research and public health policy.
Alana Cattapan is an Assistant Professor at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan. She received her doctorate in Political Science from York University and is a former postdoctoral fellow at Novel Tech Ethics at Dalhousie University. A longtime feminist researcher and activist, she studies women’s participation in policy making, identifying links between the state, the commercialization of the body, biotechnologies, and reproductive labour. She is also collaborating on research initiatives related to gender, law, and public policy including projects on gender and public engagement in Canada, altruism in clinical trial participation, and feminist approaches to the digital humanities.
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