Bio: Blessing Ogunyemi is a first-year Ph.D. student at the School of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at York University. She has a Bachelor’s in English Language from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, in 2015 and a Master’s in Literature from the same University in 2022. Her work explores and interrogates the complexities of being and belonging through multiple fields of study.
Abstract
The maternal-fetal conflict (MFC) paradigm has been in vogue in obstetrical moral reasoning since the late 1970s. Within the MFC paradigm, the mother and the fetus are perceived as separate individuals with separate needs and separate rights. While many bioethicists and birth workers have attempted to “solve” the MFC—to reason out a method of balancing moral obligations to the mother with moral obligations to the fetus—far fewer have questioned the merits of the framework itself. In this paper, I argue that the two-patient, conflict-based model of the MFC is inappropriate for pregnancy-related ethical dilemmas. I discuss ethical case studies from my professional experiences as a doula and a midwife. Ultimately, I argue in favor of replacing the MFC ethical framework with a feminist ethics of care ethical framework to improve perinatal outcomes for mothers, fetuses, and newborns.
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