Abstract
In Giving Up Baby, Laury Oaks critically interrogates from a feminist lens the discourses, ideologies, and social and political practices that led to the institution of Safe Haven Laws (SHL) in the United States (1999–2009). SHL permit parents, usually a mother, “to relinquish a newborn legally and anonymously at a specified institutional location such as a hospital or fire station” (p. 1). Oaks exposes how SHL and its surrounding sociopolitical, cultural, and economic discourses have shaped and produced binaristic constructions of motherhood as good and bad mothers. Oaks deploys a critical analysis of SHL advocacy campaigns, media reports, and coverages to demonstrate that socially and economically disadvantaged women are the targets of SHL campaigns. These campaigns have constructed some mothers as potentially ‘bad mothers’ who need to be given a way out, in order to demonstrate their responsible maternal love, by relinquishing their babies.
The aim of the book is to critique SHL and to reconceptualize infant abandonment within a reproductive justice framework instead of applying a criminal justice lens to the social issue. Oaks argues that the laws do not query the circumstances behind mothers relinquishing their babies; and through anonymous surrendering, the child is unable to have access to important information about its heritage and medical history. In fact, this has implications for First Nations and Aboriginal children who may then be placed “in non-Indian homes” (p. 25). There is no focus placed on women’s health, well-being, and the challenges of pregnancy and becoming new mothers. Oaks argues that a reproductive justice framework should be applied so that the construction of bad mother is challenged, especially as it is often a proxy for racialized women without sufficient economic and social supports. As Oaks postulates, “Taking women’s experiences as central … are better ways to work toward reproductive and socioeconomic justice” (p. 21).
What stands out in the book is the author’s detailed tracing of how practices and attitudes related to abortion (public and private), infant abandonment, and infanticide are socially, culturally, religiously, and historically situated. Such practices and discourses shift over time and have obscured the antiabortion politics which are part and parcel for SHL. Another important aspect of this book are the stories and narratives of safe-haven mothers who provide keen insights on the complexities of infant surrendering and motherhood.
Although Oaks critiques SHL, she does not endorse infant abandonment or infanticide. Oaks reaches her aim in the book by deploying the reproductive justice framework in examining the media discourses and constructions of motherhood, pregnancy, and reproductive rights to remind readers about the anonymous mothers and their sociopolitical contexts that govern the surrender of their infants. In other words, motherhood and maternal love are underscored by subject positions that promote certain women’s access to motherhood and dissuade others, who are deemed unfit to take on the responsibilities. This book is an excellent resource to students and faculty in social work, women and gender studies, sociology, cultural studies, and law. It is well written and offers critical insights on motherhood and its constructions, restorative justice, racialized women’s reproductive rights, gender, and sexuality. Anyone who is planning to pursue a career in antioppressive child welfare and wants to work in women’s programs will benefit immensely from the discussion of how policies and laws are informed by discourses. Although this book is grounded in the social and political climate of the United States, it is still relevant to in its description of how good/bad parenting is constructed and the heightened surveillance of certain marginalized families in child welfare programs across Canada.