ABSTRACT

Birth and death have become increasingly medicalised in the contemporary world, with the rationality of medical science being counterposed to the natural. In this chapter we explore the connections between the management of birth and death to show the interrelations between the natural and the medical as, for example, the rise of medicalisation is constitutive of natural practices and experience. Bodies might seem natural, but they are always social and lived. We are embodied selves which we interrogate here through the intersections of the medical and ‘natural’ processes through issues central to both birth and death, such as pain. It is not a binary between science and nature but a complex mix of both, as well as ethical and personal issues based on experience and social context. As well as exploring the interrelations between the natural and medical, we also in this chapter highlight how and why activism has often set medicalisation against a natural birth or death. Medicalisation, as well as reactions against this, is contested and we address the problems and ethical dilemmas posed, for example prolonging life in circumstances which may be possible but not feasible or desirable, as well as – through our intergenerational approach – challenging narratives of progress that equate with increasing medicalisation.