Introduction

Abstract

Advances in medical technology in conjunction with established legal rights mean that women in the ‘developed’ world should have an unprecedented ability to control their fertility. From reliable contraception and legal abortions to techniques such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and advanced health services providing safer childbirth, women are seemingly given a vast array of choices as to whether, when, and how to have children. This is often considered to be a significant contribution to gender equality, ensuring that women can fulfil their potential within the non-domestic sphere. Yet this optimistic picture often overlooks the ways in which normative ideas about women’s role as mothers operate to constrain their choices. Whilst there have been significant legal and policy gains, in practice women are still expected to make the ‘right’ choices concerning reproduction, and discourses around ‘good motherhood’ produce a context in which women are nominally allowed to choose, but the ‘wrong’ choices can be sanctioned in different ways from public condemnation to the removal of their children.