Book Summary: Policing Pregnant Bodies: From Ancient Greece to Post-Roe America
Basic Summary
A common expression is that a woman has a “bun in the oven.”
Katherine Crowther looks behind something most people will say without thinking. She examines the history and tradition behind the expression. What does it mean? Where did it originate? Why is it problematic? What does it suggest about how we think about pregnancy today?
Policing Pregnant Bodies examines the cultural, religious, and medical understanding of reproduction from ancient times until the present day. The accepted knowledge is often inaccurate. It also is sexist. The powers that be, usually men, argued that women were inferior, untrustworthy, and were the primary cause of any fetal distress.
History helps to explain current beliefs and legal policies. The support of “fetal heartbeat” bans is an example. Why is a fetal heartbeat so important? Expressions like “heart and soul” provide a hint. People over the centuries thought the heart was the location of the soul.
A “heartbeat ban” limits abortion at a very early stage of pregnancy. The Supreme Court opened the way to such laws by overturning the right to choose an abortion. This book helps to explain the traditional mindset which influences such legislation. The past is prologue.
Kathleen Crowther demonstrates the focus has been on the fetus. The woman was a type of afterthought. The result is confusion and harm to women. Women’s health would be the focus of public policy. The well-being of the fetus would benefit as well. The alternative is not only sexist but also discriminatory in other ways, including by race and class.
The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society provides a window into women’s lives in the Middle Ages. The author cautioned that we should not think that the sexism of that era is no more.
Policing Pregnant Bodies takes a similar approach. We learn about how people understood things differently in the past. Their beliefs also still influence current public policy. We still have a ways to go. The book provides insights on how to get there.
Book Information
Kathleen M. Crowther is an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma. Her areas of specialization are early modern science and medicine, the history of the book, women’s history, and Reformation history. She also wrote Adam and Eve in the Protestant Reformation.
The purpose of this book is to expose and untangle the roots of our ideas about procreation. The book is not a comprehensive history of pregnancy or embryology. I explore aspects of this history that can provide critical commentary on current controversies over abortion, miscarriage, and rising maternal and infant mortality rates.
The book is a combination of history and commentary. It focuses on Western culture, including Ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, and the history of the United States. A reader should not expect much information about Asian and African history. It picks its spots.
The book covers academic material, including philosophical beliefs on the soul, in a way accessible to the general reader. You do not need to have studied these periods to appreciate this book. The book had detailed notes and an extended bibliography.
There are also many black and white photographs.
“Bun In the Oven”
The Greek physician Hippocrates, the source of the famous Hippocrates oath, used the expression “bun in the over.” Why does the author dislike this common saying?
A baker prepares the dough. They then place the dough in the oven, which provides the heat necessary to bake the bread. The metaphor implies that a woman is an incubator, a vessel providing the “heat” (the ancients thought menstrual blood) to allow a fetus to grow.
The traditional view distrusted women. Men carefully instructed pregnant women. The rules were based on mistaken beliefs and depended on the class and race of the woman. Menstrual blood was both food for the fetus and potentially dangerous and impure.
The author prefers a 17th Century saying that women had a “guest in the house.” This metaphor implies that the woman is naturally welcoming and generous. A woman plays an active role. She is not a passive vessel for the fetus. Both the woman and the fetus have different roles.
How Do You Get Pregnant?
There was a difference of opinion in ancient and medieval times about how women became pregnant. Aristotle believed men (semen) provided the material that formed a new human.
Hippocrates thought men and women each had a role. Nonetheless, he still did not trust women. Women did not even know when they became pregnant. Men had to determine that by observing women. Multiple accounts of abortion also took away the pregnant woman’s agency.
A candidate for U.S. Senate ten years ago stated that if a woman was “legitimately” raped, she had the means to block a pregnancy. This shocking statement reflects an ancient belief that only women who orgasm can become pregnant. The woman “opened” up her body to the sperm.
Old beliefs based on faulty science, mixed with misogynist sentiments, linger on.
Heart and Soul
In Western science and culture, there are two different but intertwined hearts: the biological and the “metaphorical heart.” Both help explain the popularity of “heartbeat” abortion bans.
Many expressions such as “heart and soul” and “lion-hearted” arise from ancient understandings of the heart. The soul in Greek philosophy was the life force of all living things. Christianity adopted this concept. The soul is our connection to the divine.
Ancient Greeks believed the heart did not just pump blood, delivering nutrients to the body. The heart is a cavity of the soul. The brain provides rational thought. The heart supplies empathy and passion. It is what makes us human. The heart became deeply symbolic.
The minimum “heartbeat” that is measurable at six weeks is not a sign the fetus has a fully developed heart. The accurate label at that state is “embryo,” reflecting its early stage of development. Nonetheless, the symbolism of the heart remains.
Abortion: History and Tradition
The Supreme Court protected the right to choose an abortion in Roe v. Wade. Fifty years later, it overturned this right. Both cases significantly discussed history and tradition.
This book argues that both opinions missed the full complexity of history. Roe was correct that there was a long history of abortion. Nonetheless, it did not completely address some of the hesitance that Ancient Greece and Rome had.
The opinion overruling abortion rights also selectively examined the history. Restrictions regularly were very sexist. Two case studies (involving a Greek slave and a medieval princess) in the book underline how men often were in control of female sexuality.
Women always had the means to obtain an abortion. Nonetheless, the methods until the 20th Century were dangerous. The reform of abortion laws overlapped with medical advancements.
There also were different views about menstruation, including the belief that not menstruating was dangerous. Women took certain drugs to bring on menstruation, which also were used as abortifacients. Regulation of pregnancy in the past has to factor in the context of the times.
Trust and Care For Women
The policing of women’s bodies from ancient times until today rests on distrust of women.
Women have to juggle innumerable rules that are supposedly necessary for a healthy baby. Ancients worried that a woman would miscarry if they did not have a specific diet or was too active. Many women allegedly wanted to stop being pregnant. They intentionally did things that caused them to miscarry. The rules often rested and still rest on ignorance.
Miscarriage and other poor pregnancy outcomes generally arise because of things outside of the woman’s concern. Genetic causes are a primary cause. Miscarriages are a common occurrence.
We should not try to police women. Proper medical care, supply of healthy foods, addressing environmental threats, and other things will do much more to help both pregnant women and their children, born and unborn. We should trust and care for women.
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