Reproduction and Its Discontents in Mexico

This pioneering book fills a huge gap in Mexican history. Using an impressive array of archival and published sources, Nora Jaffary painstakingly researches the history of reproduction from 1750 to 1905, a subject so far scarcely touched by historians of Latin American women and medicine. The result is a fascinating work that combines medical, legal, cultural, and social history as it explores the attitudes toward sexuality and maternity as well as the practices surrounding childbirth, contraception, abortion, and infanticide.Examining a long time period that straddles the colonial/national divide, Jaffary traces continuities as well as changes surrounding reproduction. Indeed, with forays into the pre-Columbian era as well as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she covers a much longer time frame than the title suggests. This approach yields many important contributions. One is that, despite the dissemination of European medicine, indigenous obstetric practices and botanical knowledge—especially of abortifacients—persisted into the twentieth century among all sectors of Mexican society. This finding confirms what Marcos Cueto and Steven Palmer have shown for other parts of Latin America: that, far from merely copying European medicine, Latin Americans developed a “mestizo” repertoire that mixed European and indigenous knowledge. Another continuity was the use of midwives in childbirth throughout the nineteenth century. Although the medical establishment attempted to regulate and limit what midwives could do, and although a maternity hospital opened in Mexico City, unlicensed midwives still delivered most Mexican children at home, and these women continued to be respected for their expertise. The medicalization of childbirth, taken over by male physicians following the dictates of the medical treatises that proliferated in nineteenth-century Mexico, had thus barely begun.Jaffary does find some notable changes, mostly in the cultural realm. Although some of these changes may reflect the different kinds of sources available for different time periods, her hypotheses are tantalizing. In a fascinating chapter on “monstrous births,” she argues that attitudes toward aberrant babies (conjoined twins, two-headed infants, etc.) shifted from wonder at the God-given diversity of the natural world to repugnance as the scientific outlook spread. She posits that sexual virtue became more rather than less important in the nineteenth century, with the desire to control reproduction no longer confined to elite Spanish women because of the importance of the popular classes in reproducing the nation. And, most persuasively for this reviewer, she argues that as notions of childhood became increasingly sentimentalized, the scrutiny of maternity was also heightened.Jaffary's analysis of the “hidden history” of contraception, abortion, and infanticide is particularly valuable. Examining court cases from Oaxaca and Mexico City, she finds that these practices were more common than usually believed. Abortion was the most prevalent. Although Mexican women often drank potions to end unwanted pregnancies, these “menstrual regulators” were not considered abortifacients, perhaps because definitive proof of conception was unavailable. Even when evidence of abortion or infanticide was clear-cut, Mexican communities condoned or ignored these practices. Although there was a slight uptick in denunciations for abortion and infanticide, the harsh laws that penalized them were seldom enforced. Very few women were denounced for these crimes, and when they were, judicial authorities treated them with considerable leniency. Jaffary thus reminds us of the dangers of using legislation to understand social practice. In addition, she provides important background for the current debates about abortion in Latin America. Although some scholars have posited that the increasing criminalization of abortion today reflects the resurgence of traditional Catholic mores, Jaffary's work suggests that something different is at work because, at least in traditional Mexico, women who ended their pregnancies were rarely prosecuted.This well-written book has much to offer a variety of audiences. Part of a growing body of work on Latin American science and judicial practices, it also brings to life people from many walks of Mexican society, from mothers and midwives to husbands, lovers, employers, and neighbors. By challenging the view of the nineteenth century as one of linear progress, it raises questions about the impact of modernization on women. It will be welcomed not only by specialists in Latin American history but also by advanced undergraduates in women's studies and by activists involved in the heated debates about reproduction and women's choice

Childbirth · Colonialism · Ethnology · Indigenous · Latin Americans · Medicalization · Political science · Pregnancy · Reproduction · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Medicine

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