When bad mothers lose good babies: understanding fetal and infant mortality case reviews.

This article examines how the practices of the Fetal and Infant Mortality Review-Case Review Team (FIMR CRT) in "Florida City" constructs particular types of maternal and fetal subjects and how these narratives about fetal and infant death reflect particular discourses about "bad mothers" and "good babies." I argue that the very methods of the Florida City FIMR committee structure the types of conversations and, in effect, judgments that can be made about women who experience a fetal or neonatal death. In addition, I examine how many of these ideas resonate with the discourses around fetal rights that pervade contemporary abortion politics in the United States.