Lifeboat Ethics By Nancy Ehrenberg: Article Analysis

In the United States and in many other countries when women get pregnant, they often talk about the immediate bond between mother and her unborn child. However, in other countries and cultures, women don't feel a bond with their unborn children until the child is born healthy, happy and grows to a certain age. There are people who think the issue of bonding with your child is culturally based and others argue that this bonding takes place naturally. While Nancy Scheper-Hughs argues that mother-infant bonding is culturally based and occurs over a period of time, Lucinda J. Peach refutes this argument by saying that there is an immediate and natural bond between a mother and unborn child. I will compare and contrast these two articles and their
arguments of whether the mother-infant bond is culturally based or takes place naturally. There are many differences between the issue of mother-infant bonding in Nancy Scheper-Hughs article and in the article written by Margaret Ehrenberg.
One of the main differences is how the mother-infant bond is viewed between the two. In Nancy Scheper-Hugh's article called Lifeboat Ethics: Mother Love and Child Death in Northeast Brazil, she views the mother-infant bond as solely based on the culture. In this article, when women's babies die, either at childbirth or shortly there after, the mothers do not weep for them. Scheper-Hughs says "It would be wrong, a sign of a lack of faith, to weep for a child with such good fortune" (Brettell & Sargent 2005 pg.36). This "good fortune" refers to a saint coming and taking the child up to Heaven. The mother-infant bond in this culture is only evident when the infant either grows up to be a certain age or when the baby is born healthy and is a "fair and robust little tyke with a lusty cry." Nancy Scheper-Hughs believes that the bond between a mother and her baby is based
on the culture and on cultural norms. When Nancy Scheper-Hughs was a Peace Corps volunteer, she came to a very small poor shanty-town in Northeastern Brazil. All the women that live in this little shanty-town believe the same thing. They believe that these babies that are destined to die from the moment they are born. And these women don't show sadness when they lose their child. In contrast, Margaret Ehrenberg, in the article by The Role of Women in Human Evolution, argues that the mother infant bond is present at birth and therefore exists naturally. She thinks that, from the moment a woman finds out she is pregnant, there is an immediate strong connection between the mother and her growing fetus. This bond or connection, essentially at full strength when the child is born, grows even stronger as the mother/child relationship develops. In reading these articles, I have come to the conclusion that there are only a few similarities between these two author's views.
One similarity is the fact that both women feel bonds to their infant. I think that the women in Brazil do feel a bond to their babies' in utero but, as the baby is born, that bond is severed because of the unconscious fear of that baby dying. These women are programmed to not show or feel any pain when their baby dies. These women do start to form another bond to their children when they reach a certain age and the mother knows that he/she is not going to die. Another similarity I have found between these two articles is the focus of women as primary in raising the children. When it comes to raising the children, Ehrenberg did not mention men taking any part in the process. She says that only the mothers and the other children of the village would take part in raising the children. She states "Older offspring would be encouraged or socialized to contribute towards the care of younger siblings, including grooming, sharing food, playing, and helping to protect them" (Brettell & Sargent, 2005 pg.20). In the second article, Scheper-Hughs also does not mention men taking part in child raising. The only mention of men in the entire article is when she talks about one woman's story of "child death, her first husband's suicide, abandonment by her father and later by her second husband and all other loses and disappointments she had suffered." It seems
as though the only talk of men is negative and that men are non existent in the child rearing process. There are definite differences between these two views of mother-infant bonding. While Nancy Scheper-Hughs states that the connection between a mother and her child is culturally based, Margaret Ehrenberg feels as though that bond is natural and is there immediately. However, there are similarities to these two articles also. No matter what culture you are in or where you come from, there is a bond between a mother and her infant while the baby is still in utero. Sometimes that bond is severed initially once the baby is born to be redeveloped later if the infant is healthy. Other times that connection is immediate and stays with the baby and his/her mother all throughout life. Also, there is an absence of the male in the lives of these children and the child rearing, no matter what the culture.