The Itinerant Embryo and the Neo-Nativity Scene: Bifurcating Biological Maternity

Pregnancy and its consort childbirth have been regarded equivocally throughout much of history. Carrying and bearing a child have been perceived as sources of intense physical and psychic distress; of unrivaled physical and psychic ecstasy; as badges of woman's infirmity and of her power;" and as the worst and best of states of being. In many cultures barren women were considered failures or freaks," and in others women with battalions of infants were canonized. Paradoxically, the members of the sex whose "bodies and souls" were deemed "made for maternity"' recurrently employed homemade potions and devices to prevent the onset of 1 or the progression toward "the blessed event." The law did not, of course, accommodate these ventures.