L2L Proving Pregnancy (ft. Felicity Turner, pt. II)

Proving Pregnancy (pt. II)

Felicity M. Turner

In the past, when the legal system addressed pregnancy in cases of infanticide and other offenses, it depended heavily on the testimony of women, both for circumstances and expertise. This was at a time when the rights of women were severely restricted, but so too was physicians’ knowledge of and access to the female body. Felicity Turner’s book Proving Pregnancy documents cases from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how the (mostly male) medical “gaze” became professionalized and usurped women’s authority and autonomy. This week, Leigh, P. T., and Dr. C hold a follow-up discussion with Dr. Turner. With pregnancy once again the focus of legal proceedings, are there lessons that carry over?

Correction: In an on-air brain glitch, Leigh misspoke about the Comstock Act of 1873 (which is coming back into play today as a “legal argument” in the current abortion debate). It was the 1879 Connecticut anti-contraception law (that P. T. Barnum introduced) that was, more or less, ignored at the time — not the Comstock Act.