Tecnologias biomédicas e aborto em uma maternidade pública de Salvador - Bahia: estudo etnográfico.

Abstract

The thesis analyzes the practices of biomedical technologies in abortion-related care in a public maternity hospital in Salvador, Bahia, from an ethnographic study. This is an ethnography on the technologies that are part of the reproductive and abortion itinerary and post-abortion care of women in Salvador, Bahia, focusing on obstetric ultrasonography (USG). The study included participant observation in a public maternity hospital and at conferences and ultrasound related seminars in Bahia, as well as in-depth and informal interviews with women and health professionals. The main argument of the thesis is that biomedical technologies, or reproductive technologies specifically, including obstetric USG, by assuming different agencies, participate in relation with human actors, women and professionals, in the production of multiple realities and knowledges about reproductive issues or reproductive control - among them pregnancy, abortion - given the space, time and layers of the body where they intervene and are practiced, in specific places where they are located. In this sense, technologies create social relations, which are marked by the hospital itself, which is an encompassing technology in abortion care in Salvador. It examines the production of knowledge incorporated by women throughout the procreative and abortion process, in relation to technologies, about their own bodies and the content that is formed in the uterus during pregnancy, visualisation and its expulsion. It shows how stratification collaborates in the production of these multiple realities, whether from the point of view of health professionals or women. It discusses the relations between the equipment market, and the dichotomies between public and private services. The biomedical technologies practiced in the hospital are analyzed, among these, protocols, patient records, USG and curettage. It is concluded that the hospital as an encompassing technology - and the multiple realities emerging from it - participate in the production of reproductive (in)justice (freedom and justice).