A “Consumer's Right” to Choose a Midwife: Shifting Meanings for Reproductive Rights under Neoliberalism

Abstract

The “right to choose” has long served as the ideological rallying cry for reproductive rights activists. Yet critical attention to the social, political, and economic conditions under which individuals make such choices has been central to anthropological research on reproduction. In the context of neoliberal public policy shifts that favor trust in the market to remedy all social and economic inequality, I explore how women's reproductive rights are becoming characterized by one's ability to consume uneven reproductive “choices.” Based on my ethnographic fieldwork with midwifery supporters in Virginia, I examine how organizers have begun to utilize “consumer rights” rhetoric in their struggle for legal access to midwives. One often‐unintended result has been intensified divisions within this movement, particularly as low‐income “homebirthers” feel unable to claim the identity of “consumer.” I use Virginia as a case study to raise broader questions about women's shifting strategies toward securing reproductive rights under neoliberalism.