Recent developments in the government of pregnancy

Abstract

Three broad axes of change in the contemporary government of pregnancy are presented as a case study of governance: the subjectification of the foetus, antenatal risk management and liberal government of pregnancy. Qualifying studies that privilege popular visual representation of the foetus, the formation of the ‘public foetus’ is argued to be the object and effect of a co-patterning of lingual and visual distinctions across a variety of biomedical text types. The second axis of change, risk management of pregnancy, is shown to be a clinical risk technique conforming to neither insurantial nor neoliberal risk organization, thereby suggesting the heterogeneity of risk technologies. Lastly, struggles to govern pregnancy consistently with patient autonomy/freedom display what Foucault termed the ‘polymorphism’ of liberalism as a political rationality. The practices of freedom develop polymorphicly in relation to claims of unfreedom; the rationality of liberal governance establishes the practices of freedom as a field of constrained conflict.