There has been a lack of historical work on “operating-based histories,” which situate surgery as crucial in the formation of gender norms, femininity, and the overall medicalization of women’s bodies within the Mexican context. Historian Elizabeth O’Brien carefully traces the intersections of race, class, gender, religion, and nation-building through the evolution of obstetric surgeries in Mexico from the late-colonial to postrevolutionary period. Separated into five parts, Surgery and Salvation traces in chronological order the emergence of different forms of obstetric surgeries in Mexico, such as the cesarean section, ovariotomy, therapeutic abortion, hysterectomy, eugenic sterilization, and vaginal bifurcation. O’Brien argues that debates on fetal personhood in Mexico are directly connected to the surgical interventions imposed on racialized and marginalized bodies, specifically those of women, and must be historically contextualized to better understand the current state of obstetric violence and racism in Mexico and beyond.
The monograph explains how the religious, social,...
University of California Press