Text 2

Birth. Christina Schües.

In this brief text by Christina Schües the concept of «birth» is presented. The main aim of the text is
to present the philosophical dimensions of the concept and link them with the concept that the
science of medicine manages. The approach of the author is mainly a phenomenological approach
as she supports her claims on renowned names as Arendt, Heidegger, Husserl, Marleau-Ponty.
The benefit of adopting the phenomenological approach to treat the concept of birth lays on
the emphasis that phenomenology poses on two aspects: (1) the importance of sense and meaning
and (2) the importance of the relation between man with things linked by intentionality. By this
way, Schües can give importance to aspects that are not merely medical or biological regarding
birth, but also that are social, religious, psychological and historical amongst others. As should
already be known to all, phenomenology is a stream of though that opposes strictly to positivist or
science-centered philosophies by claiming that there’s a “world” previous to each of the science
realms. By “world” should be understood a sort of omnitudo entis, a category of categories previous
to the division of that world in different sections that would bear the names of each science. And by
the time Husserls and Heidegger wrote their major works, the struggle was fought agains natural
sciences. So, in this sense, Schües treats the concep of “birth” as raw fact – a woman giving birth to
a child – from which different perspectives depart as streams of a river. Being one stream a medical
perspective, being another stream a historical perspective, etc.
Also she emphasizes an anthropological point of view that is characteristic of
phonomenology, that is, the relation of man with things as being with him. This anthropology
claims that the world the human being dwells is already constituted before he or she comes to life -
before the human being is born -. Hence, the world is already formed and the senses things have are
already made and treated as solid things being there, but also we have have the capability of modify
the sense things have in a way that it makes a difference in the world to come – e.gr. The religious
schism between catholic and orthodox churches or the division between protestants and catholics –.
Out of this two main important claims, Schües diferentiates two ways of being existentially
speaking: there’s a pre-natal way of being and a post-natal way of being. As I say, this is an
existential difference, not an ontological one since the being is substantially the same, is the same
individual, from its conception to its death. This division between pre-natal and post-natal existence
carries the logical possibility of beginning to exist even before to ontologically come to being. As
Schües says, the history that precedes a person is also an important part of her biography. Also,
although Schües does not really state it like this, we could say that we start to exist in the head of
our mother, father, grandparents when they start imagining what would be like to have a child or a
grandchild. And this makes perfect sense with the fenomenological idea that we stated before, that
is, that sense is also already part of the furniture of the world once we are dragged to it. So, in some
sense, as individuals we have to deal with the sense that is already set before we were born. I think
that this is true but I also think that the way I just stated it is too “fancy” and deliberately poetic.
That the idea of us our relatives have does indeed has an influence on our personality could be
studied from the point of view of clinical psychology since it won’t differ any bit from the influence
our society has on our personality.
Speaking about birth itself, Schües emphasizes the historical, political and anthropological
determinations that surround birth phenommena that the tries to relate with psychoanlithical claims.
About her emphasis on psychoanalisis I shall remain silent following Wittgeinstein’s advise, since I
know nothing about the unconcious and its relations to trauma. Regardless of the attachment of the
author to this claims, to be aware of this perspectives shows us how much the birth phenomena has
been object of reflection.
Undoubtedly, the most interesting point that Schües makes is to make notice how medical
values have shaped the moment of birth. From the birthing channel weather it is a vaginal birth or a
cesarean birth, the time to give birth and how precisely can be planned according not to the new-
born well-being but according to medical bureocracy… But by far the most important point is the
medicalization of birth in terms of healthy or unhealthy pregnancy. This has become evident in the
central role medicine has taken, overtaking the protagonism of other figures and practices as
midwifes. In general, it is true that medicine has replaced a kind of “popular knowdlege” or
“wisdom” that used to be of general. A lot of this so called knowdlege was some sort of mythical
way of thinking that used to over-interpret differents phenomena involving the pregnancy process
and the birth moment. However, despite the elimination of mythical beliefs in society is a myth
worth fighting for, it is not less true that : “If pregnancy and birth are understood in terms of health
or illness, then they are subject to medical intervention and risk management, which are contingent
and depend on social and institutional processes” (Schües, in Routledge 2016). An example of this
is the generalization of giving birth in a hospital room withouth the presence of any relatives a part
from the father of the creature. Due to the standards of sterilization and for the sake of the mother
and the newborn child it has become in some sort mandatory to give birth in a hospital with the aid
of a doctor, surrounded by medical equipment and even sedated. I think women that criticize this
procedures are right in demanding, let’s say, a more human environment for her delivering act. And
this is is precisely because to give birth is as crucial as getting married or having sex for the first
time: it is a transition. A social and psychological transition in the process of a human life and it has
sense attached to it. I’m not advocating here for an unmedicalized birth. I’m just pointing out that
medicine has indeed overtaken a social act and has transformed it completely making it
unrecognizable compared to what it used to be: a socially senseful moment.
An issue that deserves to be addressed is how conditioned is the very fact of delivery to the
medical opinion. In this case I want to refer to the cases where the newborn is coming with some
sort of problem or condition that can be evaluated as a future disability. It is important to notice that,
in the case of Spain, a woman can decide to abortion only in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy in a
non-willing pregnancy scenario. After that an abortion can only be provoked either in two cases:
either in the case the life of the pregnant woman is at risk or either the case that the fetus shows risk
to develop a condition or an illnes “incompatible with life”. That means that in the first 14 weeks a
woman can decide weather to have a baby or not independently of the baby’s future condition only
attending to her willing. After that, the abortion is a process no longer voluntary that can only be
performed if a doctor proposes it. It is out of the question to proceed to an abortion after the 14th
week even if the mother demands it. Only if the child holds the risk to have a disability or the
mother’s life is at risk she will be able to decide to have it or not. So now the question arises. Why a
potentially disabled person has less right to live than potentially non-disabled person? Also, isn’t the
requirement to not be born quite arbitrary in the cases where while delivering a situation ends up in
a clear disability for the newborn? What’s the difference between having a cerebral palsy inside the
mother’s belly than having it a few moments later of going through the birth channel? Why can’t
the woman then decide to reject that child or why the medical institution does not propose to
proceed to euthanasy?
A similar situation can be mentioned in the cases where the pregnant woman has a mental
disability whether it’s a cognitive or psychiatrical issue. In that cases the family can choose whether
to let the woman give birth. Why we get choose if a child comes to life by the mental state of her
mother? Even in the case that it is obvious that her mother won’t be good at taking care of her child
and that it will worsen the economic and social situation of the family as a whole, isn’t it cynical
that the medical institution concedes the power to decide only in this situation? Isn’t it overtly
affirming that disability – the term is in itself stained with despise – is something you want to elude
or run away from? Isn’t it affirming that it is better not to live than to live disabled? Isn’t the
medical institution overtly displaying a form of eugenics?
To be clear. It is perfectly understandable that a pregnant woman wants his or her child to
live a healthy life. And it should ultimately a woman’s decision if she’s prepared to take the decision
to bring to the world someone the will clearly have more difficulties than someone born with, let’s
say, average faculties. A catholic woman, for example, would value more to give birth to a child
with difficulties of any kind over to simply have an abortion. A national-socialist woman in the 30’s
would have valued way more to have an abortion that to bring to the world a child with cerebral
palsy. Of course, there other issued o take into account as the life quality of the child. No one would
desire to bring children in life to expose them to constant suffering, by this I mean sensory
suffering.
Summing up, I just wanted to relate this Schües’ paper to Silver’s paper and arouse the
question of how the medical perspective shapes the birthing practices from the most biological to
the very axiological ones. With the abortion issue it becomes evident that disability is treated by the
medical discourse as an illness. And without wanting to reduce the medical speech to a mere
subjective speech in a post-modern manoeuvre, I think it has to be admitted that there’s a certain
conception of “disability” in medicine that is at the service of a technocratic administration of
society for which disability is seen as a burden. In the case of people with disabilities the ideals of
French Revolution are far to be assured.
Regarding to Schües’ paper, it has clearly didactic aims and it is because of that does not
affirms clearly any claim regarding birth or regarding the medical or social perspectives. The
valuation of the author is out of the question. This paper tries to present a concept and show the
problems that depart from it or get to it. That’s why the phenomenological perspective is a good
option to present this concept taking into account the purpose of the author, since phenomenological
perspective tends to be a holistic one. And, in that sense, a holistic perspective is more desirable to
do a general introduction to the birth concept than a more technical approach regarding a certain
subject related to birthing or birth as such.