Open Research Europe presents an interview with Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Stella Villarmea, the author of ‘A philosophy of birth: if you want to change the world, change the conversation’, in this month’s Research Spotlight. Read on to find out more about the research.
Can you share a summary of your Essay?
This Essay is about why and how we should introduce birth into the canon of subjects explored by philosophy. Birth care brings these fascinating philosophical questions to the forefront: is a woman in labour a subject with full rights in practice as well as in theory? Can a labouring woman exercise her autonomy in a situation of maximum vulnerability, but also maximum lucidity and awareness, as characterized by the work of giving birth? What is the relationship between agency, capacity, and pain during and between contractions? Birth care proposes key questions relating to knowledge, freedom, and what it means to be a human being. Nonetheless, giving birth continues to be a blind spot in contemporary prevailing philosophy.
What inspired you to investigate this?
Birth matters matter —and they matter philosophically too. Women frequently have their rights breached during childbirth, and we need to know why this happens before we can fix it effectively. My research takes philosophy of birth as an innovative approach to explaining how we can protect women´s rights during childbirth. Every human life begins with gestation and birth. However, in the thought and culture with which I am most familiar —commonly known as Western philosophy— delivery and birth have received considerably less attention than death and mortality.
For more than 17 years, I started using the term “philosophy of birth” to identify and explore all kinds of birth matters from a philosophical perspective. How we understand our origin and the practices that bring us into being reveals our humanity. The lived experiences of women and their situated knowledge challenge widely held assumptions about rationality, about what it is to be a birthing woman and what it is to have agency and capacity in the delivery suite.
What were the outcomes of your research?
Feminist philosophers and thinkers have criticized this imbalance, rescuing delivery and birth from a state of omission or abandonment. The philosophy of birth constitutes a vibrant and growing field of contemporary critical thought, to which I add my own voice, principally in analysing how much of birth care continues to underestimate the capacity of a woman in labour to behave rationally.
What I propose to achieve through a philosophy of birth is a new genealogy, that is, a new logos for genos —a radically new meditation on origin and birth.
What are your next steps?
On the theoretical front, my research will continue to explore the fields of philosophically exploring the abovementioned type of genealogy — a new logos for genos that sets sail from the basic premise, that birthing subjects are fully entitled citizens and their agency, autonomy, and capacity is to be acknowledged.
On the practical front, I am launching “The Philosophy of Birth Network: Live & Unplugged Conversations”. This network aims to navigate the stormy waters of contemporary philosophy and birth care through live and authentic conversations. In these sessions, we seek to bridge the gap that has existed historically between women’s health and philosophical thought.
The Philosophy of Birth Network is open to all working at the intersection of conceptual and empirical approaches to values-based medicine, philosophy of birth, obstetrics, and midwifery, as well philosophy of medicine and medical humanities. We welcome academics, health care professionals, policy makers, and experts by experience.
For more information, please contact: Stella Villarmea and if you want to find out more, read the full article here.
