Who owns the womb?
Discussing its histories and futures with Leah Hazard – midwife, writer and activist.
The womb, origin of life and of motherhood. The Scottish writer and midwife Leah Hazard wrote the bestselling book Womb, in which she refutes historical assumptions about the womb and explores future scenarios. Can medical science contribute to motherhood for many? The book forms a conversation starter between Hazard herself and researchers Jolien Gijbels (VUB) and Joz Motmans (UZ Gent), both of whom value sharing their knowledge and experience with a wide audience. With Heleen De Bruyne as moderator.
• Leah Hazard is a midwife in the UK’s National Health Service, as well as the author of The Father’s Home Birth Handbook, Hard Pushed: A Midwife’s Story (a UK Sunday Times bestseller) and Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began (Scottish Book of the Year, New York Times Editors’ Choice). She is an outspoken advocate for reproductive healthcare, appearing regularly in the national and international media, and her next book, Birth Wars (due in 2027), will interrogate the way global maternity care is delivered and experienced in the 21st century. Leah is also a trustee of Amma Birth Companions, an organisation which provides perinatal support to people experiencing social isolation. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
• Dr. Jolien Gijbels is an assistant professor of History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and a research fellow at KU Leuven's Research Group of Cultural History since 1750. Her research interests encompass the history of medicine, gender, and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries. Dr. Gijbels has published on topics such as obstetric dilemmas, reproductive surgery, and the interplay between medicine and religion. This year she will publish a book for a broader audience, about the history of consent.
• Dr. Joz Motmans is the coordinator of the Centre for Sexology and Gender at Ghent University Hospital. He has contributed extensively to the field of transgender studies, focusing on the social and legal situations of transgender individuals. Dr. Motmans has been involved in research projects that map the experiences of transgender people in Belgium and has co-authored publications addressing transgender health care and nonbinary transgender health.
• Heleen Debruyne (born 1988) is a Belgian author, radio producer, and columnist. She studied history and journalism at Ghent University. She presents the cultural programme De Jaren on Klara radio. Together with Anaïs Van Ertvelde, she created the podcast Vuile Lakens, which explores topics related to sex and the body. This podcast led to the publication of the book Vuile Lakens in 2017. Her debut novel, De plantrekkers, was published in 2016, followed by De huisvriend in 2021, a personal narrative about family secrets and their impact.
