ABSTRACT
Inspired by reports of BMI cut-offs for life-saving ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, this chapter explores the ways in which a “logics of eugenics” is deployed on fat bodies through reproductive care practices. The authors draw on literatures of obesity stigma and fat eugenics and report on results of qualitative research conducted in Winnipeg, Canada, with 25 self-identified fat or “obese” women exploring their experiences of health care during conception, pregnancy, and birth. The research was part of a larger cross-Canada study of 59 participants titled Reproducing Stigma. Overwhelmingly, participants described narratives of discouragement and practices of reluctant care targeted at their bodies by reproductive health care professionals who emphasized health risks to the foetus associated with “maternal obesity,” and shamed participants both for their weights and desire to mother. Participant stories demonstrate, the authors argue, the diffuse and complicated ways in which eugenics is unintentionally practiced on fat bodies within medical practice through discourses of risk that articulate fat bodies as unhealthy vectors of reproduction. The authors thus contribute to a budding scholarship in the area of obesity stigma, demonstrating how the active discouragement and curtailment of fat women’s reproduction suggests that they may face a very specific and significant type of stigma based on body size, connecting to a long history of eugenic population control in Canada.
