The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal SurgeryWinner of the 1998 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems It is now possible for physicians to recognize that a pregnant woman's fetus is facing life-threatening problems, perform surgery on the fetus, and if it survives, return it to the woman's uterus to finish gestation. Although fetal surgery has existed in various forms for three decades, it is only just beginning to capture the public's imagination. These still largely experimental procedures raise all types of medical, political and ethical questions. Who is the patient? What are the technical difficulties involved in fetal surgery? How do reproductive politics seep into the operating room, and how do medical definitions and meanings flow out of medicine and into other social spheres? How are ethical issues defined in this practice and who defines them? Is fetal surgery the kind of medicine we want? What is involved in reframing fetal surgery as a women's health issue, rather than simply a pediatric concern? In this ethnographic study of the social, cultural and historical aspects of fetal surgery, Monica Casper addresses these questions. The Making of the Unborn Patient examines two important and connected events of the second half of the 20th century: the emergence of fetal surgery as a new medical specialty and the debut of the unborn patient. |
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The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery Monica J. Casper No preview available - 1998 |
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abortion politics Adamsons Adzick amniocentesis animal antiabortion Auckland baby biomedical birth blood Capital Hospital cells cesarean section chapter clinicians context cultural despite diaphragmatic hernia ethical experimental experiments fetal interventions fetal medicine fetal patient fetal patienthood fetal personhood fetal physiology fetal researchers fetal rights fetal surgery team Fetal Treatment Unit fetal wound healing fetus focused Freda gery guidelines Harrison hemolytic disease human subjects informed consent innovation interests intervention issues Liggins Liley Liley's maternal-fetal conflict medical workers ment monkeys mother National Women's Hospital neonatal nonhuman primates objects obstetricians obstetrics open fetal surgery operating room outcomes participants physicians postoperative potential practices preg pregnant women prenatal diagnosis preterm labor pro-life problems procedure professional protocol Puerto Rico reproductive politics Rh disease routine sheep social worker sonographers specialty success surgeon told surgical Susan techniques technologies Terbutaline tion tocolysis treat ultrasound unborn patient uterus woman women's health Zealand