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Pregnancy Without Birth: A Feminist Philosophy of Miscarriage
Pregnancy is so thoroughly entangled with birth and babies in the popular imagination that a pregnancy which ends in miscarriage consistently appears as a failure or a waste of time – indeed, as not proper to pregnancy at all. But in this compelling book, Victoria Browne argues that reflection on miscarriage actually deepens and expands our understanding of pregnancy, forcing us to consider what pregnancy can amount to besides the production of a child.
By exploring common themes within personal accounts of miscarriage-including feelings of failure, self-blame and being 'stuck in limbo'- Pregnancy Without Birth critically interrogates teleological discourses and disciplinary ideologies that elevate birth as pregnancy's 'natural' and 'normal' endpoint. As well as politicizing miscarriage as a feminist issue, the book articulates an alternative intercorporeal philosophy of pregnancy which embraces variation, invites us to sit with ambiguity, contingency and suspension, and enables us to see subjective agency in all pregnancies, even as they are shaped by biological, political and social forces beyond our personal control. What emerges is a relational feminist politics of full-spectrum solidarity, social justice and care (rather than individualized choice and responsibility), which breaks down presumed oppositions between pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth and live birth, and liberates pregnancy from reproductive futurism.
By exploring common themes within personal accounts of miscarriage-including feelings of failure, self-blame and being 'stuck in limbo'- Pregnancy Without Birth critically interrogates teleological discourses and disciplinary ideologies that elevate birth as pregnancy's 'natural' and 'normal' endpoint. As well as politicizing miscarriage as a feminist issue, the book articulates an alternative intercorporeal philosophy of pregnancy which embraces variation, invites us to sit with ambiguity, contingency and suspension, and enables us to see subjective agency in all pregnancies, even as they are shaped by biological, political and social forces beyond our personal control. What emerges is a relational feminist politics of full-spectrum solidarity, social justice and care (rather than individualized choice and responsibility), which breaks down presumed oppositions between pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth and live birth, and liberates pregnancy from reproductive futurism.
232 pages, Paperback
Published October 6, 2022
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November 21, 2025
Reimagination of the futuristic determinism / individualism of pregnancy. The reading is dense but extremely well researched and feel like it grew my brain a lot
"The mother entered liminality but is left in this frightening place of being between roles ... She engaged in the rituals and communitas that she needed, but the death of the child prevented reintegration either as a mother or a woman ... she is left being simply a woman ... she is unable to become a mother in a way that society would recognize and unable to return to thinking of herself as being only a woman."
"It is still important to consider the different ways that foetuses are conceptualized and imagined, in utero as well as during and following miscarriage. For instance, how can subjective understandings of miscarriage as 'the loss of a baby' be validated without the fundamental ambiguity, variability and materiality of pregnancy being erased or eclipsed? How can grief and loss be articulated and acknowledged without fuelling anti-abortion logics and imaginaries?"
"Though the anti-abortion movement may seem to have pushed feminists into an either/or corner, wherein a foetus is either a baby or it is not... the ways that pregnant/miscarrying/unpregnant people grapple with ontological ambiguity and multiplicity as a matter of everyday existence must not be underestimated."
"The mother entered liminality but is left in this frightening place of being between roles ... She engaged in the rituals and communitas that she needed, but the death of the child prevented reintegration either as a mother or a woman ... she is left being simply a woman ... she is unable to become a mother in a way that society would recognize and unable to return to thinking of herself as being only a woman."
"It is still important to consider the different ways that foetuses are conceptualized and imagined, in utero as well as during and following miscarriage. For instance, how can subjective understandings of miscarriage as 'the loss of a baby' be validated without the fundamental ambiguity, variability and materiality of pregnancy being erased or eclipsed? How can grief and loss be articulated and acknowledged without fuelling anti-abortion logics and imaginaries?"
"Though the anti-abortion movement may seem to have pushed feminists into an either/or corner, wherein a foetus is either a baby or it is not... the ways that pregnant/miscarrying/unpregnant people grapple with ontological ambiguity and multiplicity as a matter of everyday existence must not be underestimated."
Displaying 1 of 1 review