4 Re/production

Abstract

This chapter examines how reproduction figures within sexual assault interventions. It begins with the case of emergency contraception to elucidate the relationship between sexual violence and reproductive violence. In particular, it considers the role of emergency contraception in the production of credibility and the corroboration of non-consent, as well as the production of children born from the violent encounter of rape. It then stresses the need for forensic nurse examiners (FNEs) to manage sexual assault victims' reproductive potentials and possibilities in order to bring the victim into being as a legal subject. It shows how the FNEs' orientation to victims' future possibilities and potentialities is framed by legal criteria, while sexual assault victims draw on very complicated relationships and histories of sexual violence. It argues that sexual violence and subsequent interventions into sexual violence may disrupt kinship relations as well as access to livelihood, leading victims to consider the possibility of re-knitting or stabilizing already delicate social relations when deciding whether to participate in or withdraw from the legal process.