Pregnancy and Inclusion Project
Obstetric patients have historically been excluded from biomedical research on vaccines, medications, and other medical interventions. Such exclusion means that there is a very poor evidence base for treating pregnant patients in the twenty-first century. Currently, a cultural shift is underway for improving this inadequate knowledge base by expanding regulatory and ethical frameworks about who should be included in clinical research.
My current book project examines the cultural, ethical, and regulatory context surrounding the exclusion and inclusion of pregnant individuals in biomedical research. It is both a history of the lack of scientific knowledge around pregnancy and a sociological account of how changes in knowledge and ethics get produced.
Drawing on multiple methods, including archival research, content analysis, ethnographic observations, and in-depth interviews with multiple experts and stakeholder groups, this project documents past and present changes in research regulations pertaining to “vulnerable populations,” with a specific focus on obstetric patients and clinical trials. In doing so, I theorize about ethical knowledge production, the promise and limits of inclusion, and the high stakes of scientific and ethical debates about vulnerability, reproduction, and risk.
This work is supported by the Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholars Program and the National Science Foundation.