ABSTRACT

It is rather startling to think of childbirth in terms of violence, vulnerability, and control. Yet, the World Health Organization confirms that this is indeed an issue that demands our attention and more meaningful consideration. This chapter initiates that process with the aim to encourage more contributions from law, since the law has been concerningly silent on this aspect of women’s lived experiences. This chapter introduces the connecting themes of the edited collection: violence, vulnerability, and control; and it briefly explores how these issues materialise during childbirth. It explores the contested nature of violence, vulnerability, and control, and locates the contribution of each chapter within these concepts. The chapter emphasises that there is clearly a dearth in legal analysis and then considers the different avenues in law worthy of consideration. It explores aspects related to human rights, tort law, criminal law, fiduciary law, and legislative reform by drawing from contributions within the edited collection and from broader debates preceding this collection. The chapter emphasises that there is a nagging need to understand where obstetric violence starts and where it ends, and that we will not be able to identify its core wrong(s) or produce an effective legal response to the issues raised until we are able to capture its multifaceted nature.