RISA CROMER
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New essay! 'Which Lives Matter? Pro-Life Politics during a Pandemic,' Medical Anthropology Quarterly Critical Issues Blog Series

9/29/2020

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Sophie Bjork-James (Vanderbilt) and I co-authored the essay 'Which Lives Matter? Pro-Life Politics during a Pandemic' for the Medical Anthropology Quarterly Critical Care blog series, which focuses on the upcoming general election. Our first draft of this essay, submitted on Sept 11, reported 176,000 COVID deaths in America. Three weeks later, we had to update the number to over 200,000. All under the leadership of America's most 'pro-life' President. 

As anthropologists of reproductive politics and white evangelical Christians in the United States, we are aware of the power of "saving" rhetoric among the pro-life advocates. We live in Southern and Midwest states, respectively, where COVID rates are surging, our universities deem in-person teaching a "duty," and our elected officials are extremely hostile to reproductive rights and justice. This essay examines what pro-life has come to mean during this pandemic. 

For those who watched the first presidential debate tonight, the future of abortion rights, systemic racism, and ‘law and order’ rhetoric were all major topics of discussion. They also figure centrally in explaining what ‘pro-life’ means in American politics these days. Check out our take here. Thank you to the series editor Amber Benezra for inviting us to contribute!
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"Thaw," Life and Death Seminar, Center for Historical Analysis,Ā Rutgers University

9/29/2020

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Dr. Johanna Shoen (Professor of History) and Dean Kim Mutcherson (Professor of Law) are leading a two-year seminar at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis focused on Life and Death, and I had the pleasure of participating in it today.

Last week I circulated a new chapter,  "Thaw," for my book project Ex Utero and today we discussed temperature, theology, and uterine saving spaces. I'm energized by our conversation ranging in topics from racialized innocence in US evangelical Christianity, afterlives of PGD embryos, why for evangelicals the uterus is the preferred place for embryos to die, God's inability to heal pain of reproductive losses, feminist STS analyses of embryo thawing, how fertility and abortions clinics relate in reproductive politics, economics of embryo saving, how my own relationship to these issues do/don't/should/could come through in my writing, etc. 

​Learn more about the Life/Death seminar here and the broad range of scholars participating in the ongoing conversation. Thanks again! 
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  • home
  • about
  • c.v.
  • research
    • Conceiving Christian America
    • Reproductive Righteousness
    • Doctoring Dobbs
  • teaching
  • engagement
  • contact