Born Still: A Memoir of Grief
How did we move so far from love that a mother’s grief became the vehicle with which to punish her?
Losing a baby during childbirth is one of the most heartbreaking things imaginable. But to then be accused of causing that death is nothing short of soul-destroying.
Janet Fraser’s story shows what happens when private grief is turned into a public accusation against a woman who dared to exercise choice about how and where she gave birth.
This sobering book demonstrates the penalties dished out to women who question medical orthodoxy and to make decisions for themselves about their own bodies.
When things go wrong in a hospital, it is seen as unavoidable, and no one is to blame, as the medical institutions are seen as the arbiters of decision-making. The layers of bureaucracy protect insiders.
Yet if a baby dies in a home birth, the full weight of the law comes down upon the woman who dared to give birth outside a hospital.
Janet Fraser is that woman and this is her story of injustice, loss and grief. This painful yet enlightening book shows that the patriarchy still wrestles for the control of women and their bodies —and punishes them with every tool in the legal handbook when they contest the view that their bodies are public property.
AUGUST 2020 | ISBN 9781925950120 | Paperback | 135 x 180 mm | 112 pages
Janet Fraser's new book Born Still: A Memoir of Grief was launched online by Dr Petra Bueskens, August 2020. You can watch it here.
Table of Contents
Betrayal
Pathologising Women
Chapter Five
The Inquest
Looking for the Witch Mark
Feminism on Trial
My Big Lies
No End in Sight
My Statement to the Court
Submissions
Chapter Six
The Findings
Conclusion
Endnotes
Introduction
When Grief is Political
The Witch's Double: The Mother the System Tried to Crush
Chapter One
Planning the Birth of a Child: Hope and Reality
Rights of Women First
Chapter Two
Birthing at Home
Chapter Three
Birthing My Daughter
May 2009
Chapter Four
The Aftermath
The Law Intervenes on Postmortem
What Happens When a Baby is Stillborn?
Reviews
FIVE STAR REVIEW
A profound and incredible memoir of grief. This is a profoundly moving memoir of one woman's incredible journey of private and public grief. At once a love story, a feminist rallying cry, and a tender heart-to-heart between one mother and the reader, Fraser shines a light on one of patriarchy's oldest and deepest roots: the unparalleled fear of a woman who makes decisions for her own body. Fraser writes with intimacy, candour and wit. As a narrator Fraser is both erudite and accessible, bold and vulnerable, and the memoir takes considerable strength from Fraser's ability to articulate how her own heart-rending story is both bewilderingly unique, yet also inextricable from those of almost every woman from countless generations past: shaped by misogyny. Fraser writes, 'If women's lives are better, then our birthing is better. Birth is a distillation and indication of women's overall rights in any society." For a society that considers itself modern, progressive and fair, what the Australian so-called 'justice' systems and media put a grieving mother through is staggering. A must-read not just for those interested in the politics of feminism and childbirth in modern society, but for anyone wishing to explore, and open up to, their own humanity.
— Reader Review, Booktopia