ABSTRACT
Pregnancy has clear physiological beginning and end. Yet, the protagonists and antagonists of pregnancy stories are less determined by biology; their stories are framed by social organization. Rachel Westfall’s chapter reports in detail the complex process of interaction whereby a pregnant woman and the medical establishment claim ownership over both the pregnant women and the unborn. Through her stories we learn how health care in the modern welfare state is the result of intersecting practices of individual care of the self and institutionally mandated care of medicalized subjects’ bodies.
