Recent federal legislation has resulted in changes by which fetuses are now considered rights holders and persons with national identities. Those changes compel our nation to protect our unborn through the recognition of individualrights for the fetus. Most of the work exploring the implications of the emergence of fetuses as rights holders has focused on isues of women's control over their bodies or abortion politics. Women, however, are imagined generically; the differences among women which could shape the impact of these issues have not yet been critically examined. For example, very little work has explored the important question of what these developments mean for pregnant immigrant women of color with uncertain legal status. This dissertation research will explore how routine medical procedures and recent legal initiatives shape the way Haitian women giving birth in the United States imagine and redefine rights, national identities, and citizenship in light of the fetus.
This work will use ethnographic data-participant observation in clinics and community settings in South Florida and the collection of Haitian women's narratives around their experiences in prenatal care. In addition, this work will be grounded within their pre-existing notions of reproduction and motherhood, and therefore explore the intertwining of social and biological reproduction. This project will use the comncept of "fetal positions" (Casper 1994), that is, being mindful of the many ways in which the fetus is constructed, used or represented, as well as the multiple actors associated with these positions as a means to incorporate ethnographic data with current legislative and media representations of the idea of fetuses as rights holders and persons with national identity.
Intellectual Merit and Broader Impact of Project This research adds to the theoretical and practical issues which have to do with the adoption and utilization of new technologies (in this case, prenatal care and reproductive imaging) and the state's ability to define rights holders . Although a fewanthropologists have begun to investigate the construction of fetal personhood in crosscultural contexts, this project inquires how immigrants negotiate differing conceptions of the fetus, and consequently, how these alternative ideas affect their experiences in prenatal care. Although this project addresses larger theoretical issues around reproduction and identity, one of the most beneficial aspects of science and technology research is its ability to engage larger political issues. At a time when Americans are concerned with "protecting new life," the impact on women's rights as well as women's experiences in pregnancy have become increasingly important. In addition, as Haitians continue to stream into the United States, their existence in America continues to be highly contested. By investigating the (re)production of the next Haitian-American generation, we can begin tosee how current issues in reproductive politics and immigrant identity can be explored through "fetal positions."
