Proving Pregnancy with Felicity Turner

Felicity Turner, Associate Professor in the Department of History at Georgia Southern University, discusses her book Proving Pregnancy: Gender, Law, and Medical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America. Professor Turner explores the intersection of law and the emerging medical professionalization in cases of infanticide in the United States. By examining the legal documents, she is able to show how women's knowledge was invaluable to pregnancy and birth, often called to be expert witnesses at inquests, yet over time women were marginalized by the white male struggle for professional authority. Doctors and lawyers used access and understanding to women's reproductive processes to solidify expertise. Infanticide allowed white men to extend their authority and access to women's birthing bodies leading to racialization, biological essentialist, and outright wrong medical and legal knowledge.

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The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library's 1619 Project discussion group meets every second Thursday of the month. We discuss how the legacy of slavery remains a dominant factor of American political, cultural, and social spheres. The library program centers on the articles included in the New York Times Special Sunday Magazine dated August 20, 2019.
The program began in October 2019 and has had over 500 people participate. All interviews done by John Piche'.

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Music by Controller 7