'Disembodying Women' Reviewed, Harshly

In 1995, Barbara Duden's book, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn, came in for a highly critical and dismissive review at a site called New Oxford Review. The publication calls itself "an orthodox Catholic magazine, … addressing head-on the full range of issues confronting Holy Mother Church, and doing so with unswerving loyalty to her Pope and Magisterium."

The reviewer is Laura Garcia, a teacher of religious philosophy. She has co-founded two organizations, University Faculty for Life and Women Affirming Life. One of Duden's concerns in her book -- and one that she discussed at length with Ivan Illich -- is the idolization of "life," particularly as encouraged by the visualization of the human fetus through intra-uterine photography and ultrasound imaging and the reframing of pregnancy as a process, and the mother as a system, that both require intensive management.