Death before Birth: Liminal Bodies and Legal Frameworks

Following a pregnancy loss, both the woman’s body and that of the fetus have somewhat uncertain statuses; both occupy a liminal space between different states of being. The woman has begun to develop an identity as a mother but cannot perform this identity with this particular child in the way she had expected; she has lost something that was physically part of her but that was also on track to become a person in their own right. The fetus, too, occupies a liminal space in that it lies somewhere between a baby and ‘human tissue’; it is at once part of the mother and a separate entity, and, in many cases, it embodies an imagined future that will never be. This chapter has two connected aims. First, it shows how metaphor analysis can be used to inform socio-legal understanding of pregnancy loss with a particular focus on its status as a liminal, embodied experience. This new understanding can inform researching and teaching on the body by showing how metaphor can be used as a socio-legal method. Second, it contributes to the increased interest in, and value of, liminality in health law scholarship.