ABSTRACT
One of the most common claims coming from those who have suffered a perinatal death is the lack of care from the medical system and from society itself, as well as the need for a more empathetic response to their situation, which is much more common than expected. The aim of this chapter is to propose a new approach to stillbirth and late termination of pregnancy for foetal anomalies—an issue which has experienced a great degree of public attention in the past few years—not least due to the nonfiction book Look at Him (2017), an autoethnography of abortion and grieving written by the Russian novelist and journalist Anna Starobinets. By using Feminist Care Ethics and Care Aesthetics frameworks, the author analyses how the aesthetic aspects of this kind of care―specially in the negative spectrum―and how they are intertwined with ethical claims. Through dissociation, metaphors, and semantic choice, the author creates a deeply uncomfortable aesthetic atmosphere that matches the horrors of the embodied experience. Moreover, we must understand this memoir itself as an artistic or cultural artefact that had a profound impact in its home society, Russia, as well as in other countries like Spain, and led to political action.
