The Limits of 'Reproduction' for Justice
Video Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by Kris McLain
Exhibition Number 506
Abstract
In our contemporary world, “reproduction” acts as an umbrella term for the many facets of pregnancy and childbirth. However, the term itself is markedly narrow in scope and fails to capture the entirety of the conception process, including preconception, conception, gestation, labor, birth, and postnatal care. In effect, it flattens the experience of procreation into a singular event, the birth of a live child. In this paper, I focus on two limitations of using reproduction as our orientating concept for procreative care: the social isolation of the pregnant individual and the centering of the potential offspring. In response to these limitations, I resuscitate the terminology of “generation” emphasizing the process and relational elements of the procreative experience that is prioritized in some historical accounts of pregnancy and birth such as those found in Mary Weismantel’s analysis of Moche artifacts. Reorienting our expectations of pregnancy towards a generative model shifts reproductive ethics away from models of individualized responsibility to models concerned with structural change and community care.
Importance
Contemporary approaches to pregnancy center the production of an offspring and in turn relegate the pregnant individual to invisibility--little more than a vehicle for reproduction. This paper seeks to intervene conceptually by arguing our language and metaphors particularly those which employ the term 'reproduction' constrain our possibility of thinking broadly about what generation and gestation might mean. I suggest that instead we should approach pregnancy, labor, delivery, kinship, and pregnancy care through a generative model which thinks capaciously about community, care, structural change, and the procreative experience.
DEI Statement
This work engages with topics of gender, race, diversity, sexuality, political engagement, reproductive justice, and human rights. This is a topic of particular concern as the maternal death rate is excessively high in the U.S. for folks of color. A shift in how we approach pregnancy and pregnancy care is necessary in order to enact reproductive justice (a theory developed by Black women).