Pregnancy and Birth

Karen O’Donnell is Academic Dean at Westcott House, Cambridge. A feminist, ecumenical, practical theologian, her interdisciplinary research interests span theology, spirituality, and pedagogy. She is the author of several books with SCM Press, including The Dark Womb, which was longlisted for the 2023 Michael Ramsey Prize.Claire Williams is a teacher and researcher at Regents Theological College, and the author of Peculiar Discipleship.

"This beautifully curated collection reveals the ambiguities, privileges, disruptions, pain, trauma, and silences that pregnant and 'un/pregnant' bodies experience in Christian discourse. I was moved and challenged by the poetic, personal, and critical reflections – from surrogacy, abortion, trans pregnancy, single motherhood, fat bodies, Dalit women, to menopause – that centre pregnancy and birth as sites of feminist theological meaning making."

• AcknowledgementsContributorsWombs of our OwnConception by Karen O’Donnell and Claire Williams Concept Conception: It All Begins Somewhere by Ruth Wells Theological Pregnancies The Body is (Not Quite) One by Rachel Muers My Body in Parts by Ruth WellsPregnancies Human and Divine: The Flesh of Mary and the Body of Christ by Karen O’Donnell This is my Body by Ruth Wells Reading 1 Timothy 2:15 Through the Lens of Black Pregnancy and WomanistCare by Victoria Omotoso Reflections on the ‘Travail’ of the Earth in Romans 8, and Humans’ role in Companioning this Labour by Christopher SouthgateKenotic Invitation by Ruth Wells‘Groaning in Labour…Awaiting Adoption’: Pregnancy to Adoption as a Paradigm for Understanding God’s Action in the World by Helen CollinsBeyond Borderland by Ruth Wells‘Her Bleeding Stopped’: The Embodied Borderland of the Menopause by Julie Gittoes Spiritual Pregnancies Christian Spirituality in Pregnancy and Childbirth by Alison Price Psycho-spiritual Formation in Pregnancy: A Letter to a Younger, Christian Friend by Jo Winn-Smith Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Mysticism: Reading the Texts of Angela of Foligno by Michael Hahn and Lydia ShahanDisruptive PregnanciesSurrogacy, Secrecy, and the Sin of the Autonomous Self by Danielle Tumminio Hansen Undignified Flesh: An Indignant Theology of Single Pregnancy by Karen Bray Dissolving Domination by Ruth WellsPregnant and Fat by Sarah PritchardVoluminous by Ruth WellsPregnant Masculinities: Utilising the Frame of ‘Solidarity’ to Navigate Between the Dominant Frames of ‘Dysphoria’ and ‘Euphoria’ in Narratives of Transmasculine Pregnancy by Alex Clare-YoungThe Seahorse by Ruth Wells Ethical Pregnancies Solidarity with the ‘Stinking Womb’: Contemplating the Experiences of Pregnant Dalit Women and Hagar by Eve ParkerThreatening Womb by Ruth WellsThe Precarity and Moral Obligations of Pregnancy by Margaret D. Kamitsuka A Response to Karen O’Donnell’s and Margaret Kamitsuka’s Feminist Reimaginings of Eschatology through the Lens of Pregnancy Loss by Susannah Cornwall Liminal Life: A Theological Response to Preimplanation Pregnancy, Embryo Disposal and Loss by Abigail MaguireLiminality by Ruth WellsAbortion and Theology: The Power Effects of the Abstract by Noirin MacNamara and Kellie TurtlePainful Pregnancies Groaning Witness: A Theological Response to Adverse Prenatal Diagnosis by Heather Morgan The Mind of Christ: Self-Emptying, Kenosis, and Pregnancy Sickness by Chine McDonaldHyperemesis Gravidarum Haiku by Ruth Wells‘May this mother, remembering no longer her anguish, trust you in all things’: A Liturgical Response to Birth Trauma by Alice WatsonAttending to Silence and Screaming: A Theology from Mental Illness in Pregnancy by Beth Allison-Glenny Bodies and All That by Ruth Wells Afterbirth by Claire Williams and Karen O’Donnell