Perinatal Liminality: Birthright Citizenship and the fight to control immigrant reproduction

• In Event: 50866 - Race, Families, and Reproductive Health (Co-sponsored by Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities)

Abstract

Over the past fifteen years, public debates about the value of birthright citizenship, and narratives casting immigrants as threatening to citizenship and the composition of society have become rampant in the US and Canada. These debates are driven by intersecting anxieties about race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, and culture. In the US, these debates culminated in the Executive Order purporting to end Birthright Citizenship for the children of certain immigrants. Reproductive health is a rich juncture for examining the relationship between immigrants, their bodies, and the state. Despite their interconnected healthcare needs, many states differentiate between the rights of pregnant people versus fetuses. This is salient for pregnant immigrants as the future legal status of the fetus may serve as a temporary source of structural inclusion. This paper unpacks these complex dynamics through a comparative sociolegal examination of changing laws and policies governing access reproductive care for pregnant immigrants in the US and Canada.
This paper extends the liminal legality framework to the case of pregnant immigrants. Legal status shapes interactions with healthcare systems. Immigrant incorporation policies create systems of structural violence and inequality. These include excluding immigrants from access to socioeconomic resources (e.g. healthcare), and laws and policies controlling parenting behaviors. I contend that pregnancy is itself a source of liminality as the pregnant person is both an individual and the carrier of a future person. Pregnant immigrants experience multiple intersecting forms of liminality over the course of the perinatal period. The changeable nature of pregnant immigrants’ status in society during the perinatal period shapes their experiences of care and integration into society. The barriers immigrants face to accessing perinatal care and their experiences of care raise important questions about how membership in a society is defined, the healthcare rights of immigrants, and the incorporation of citizens across generations.

Author

• Zoë Chaetana Miller-Vedam, University of California-Irvine