Fertile Truth: Plato’s Midwifery Metaphor and Contemporary Reproductive Politics

In the Theaetetus, Socrates claims that he is a midwife, someone who can help pregnant (male) subjects birth ideas. He explains that his mother was a midwife and that he learned from helping and watching her. Yet while the job of a midwife is to birth babies to a live and healthy state (although Socrates also acknowledges that some pregnancies/ ideas are “wind-eggs” and appropriately destined for “miscarriage”), successfully determining the result (clarity? definition?) of an idea is perhaps more fraught with challenges. The focus of this dialogue is knowledge, and in typical Socratic fashion the debate is not resolved by the end of the exchange. However, the discussion does suggest (initially) that knowledge is a matter of individual perception of facts and evidence, although those facts and evidence are always evolving. He concludes with a seemingly more promising definition of knowledge as true judgment with an account (or justified true belief). However, he ultimately determines that, “our art of midwifery tells us that all of these offspring are wind-eggs, and not worth bringing up” (210b). I suggest that Plato’s midwifery metaphor provides important insights into knowledge as it relates to the contentious field of reproductive politics. For complex matters, beyond those that can be resolved by simple perception, knowledge entails the integration of scientific and social realms. The decision to terminate a pregnancy, or the factors that determine maternal health or a “good birth,” often implicate medical-scientific and personal-social determinants, combined in various ways, dependent on context. The boundary between these realms is permeable, constantly “in motion,” as is the knowledge that is critical to ensuring reproductive health and justice. In this paper I will examine Plato’s midwife metaphor as a way to better understand the nature of knowledge that shapes and limits reproductive rights and justice and the consequences for boundary crossing in the politics of pregnancy and childbirth.