“Whose baby is this?”: Challenges for homeless women's right to motherhood

Abstract

The experiences of homeless pregnant women create tensions in the public debate between individual guarantees and limits on State interventions. This article analyzes the scientific research on this issue, focusing on the biomedical, legal, and social arguments backing the positions in this debate. Based on an integrative review of Brazilian and international databases, the authors analyzed 21 studies and identified four propositions: Health risks for the woman and the fetus/child; Discourses on prenatal care; Rights of women and fetuses/ children; and Meanings of motherhood. The article concludes that the experience of motherhood for these women is extremely complex, not only because of their homelessness, but due to the entire context, marked by unequal class, race, and gender relations. The Brazilian and international scenario features a discourse of protection and care for the fetus/infant that overrides care for the mother. The criminalization of homeless women's motherhood has been a global trend in which the expansion of “fetal/infant” rights translates as a cutback in the women's rights. Such an approach fails to encourage homeless women to seek social and health services, rather discouraging them from doing so. An ethical and humanitarian imperative is to conceive different approaches to care, grounded in a human rights perspective so that care for the fetus/child does not translate as violence against the mother.