Anne Hutchinson’s “Monstrous Birth”; or, the First Documented Molar Pregnancy in America
Anne Hutchinson is one of the more infamous characters in early American history, who sparked a massive controversy that threatened to upend the delicate balance of Puritan New England. Hutchinson had developed quite the following amongst both women and men, preaching weekly in response to the sermons and lectures given by local church leaders. She was unapologetically critical much of the time. Hutchinson’s lectures were anathema to the establishment because not only was she a woman daring to speak, but she was questioning the integrity of the dominant religious narrative. Specifically, she accused the ministers of preaching a “covenant of works” (a decidedly Roman Catholic doctrine that people are saved by their actions) rather than a “covenant of grace” (which is linked to the Calvinist belief in predestination, or the idea that one is “saved” or not based on God’s determination regardless of their actions on earth). What is less known about Hutchinson, however, and was critical to her ability to amass enough of a following to be noticed and deemed a threat, was her role as a trusted midwife in her community.
Hutchinson was born Anne Marbury in 1591. She emigrated to New England in 1634 with her husband and children, like other Puritans, in search of freedom from the Anglican Church. The Hutchinsons continued to grow their family in Boston, and she was a mother of fifteen by the time she died. By the mid-1630s, Hutchinson’s weekly meetings had caught the attention of ministerial leadership and triggered a crisis in the colony known as the “Antinomian Controversy.” In 1637 she faced a trial presided over by the most powerful Puritan in New England at the time: Governor John Winthrop. Winthrop’s journal survives today, and we have a great deal of information about what went on in Hutchinson’s trial as a result. It is clear from the transcripts of the trial that Winthrop felt great disdain toward this “woman of a haughty and fierce carriage,” but even he had to admit that she was “help-full in times of childbirth.”
In addition to being a midwife, Hutchinson was, as stated above, a mother. During her trial, she was pregnant once again. She was often unwell during the trial, but stood up for herself regardless. Despite being pregnant, Hutchinson was banished from the colony by Winthrop and the committee, and was forced to flee south. During her exile, Hutchinson delivered prematurely, and Winthrop claims he “was called to see” the products of conception by the doctor who attended her. Winthrop described the products thusly: there were “innumerable distinct bodies in the form of a globe, not much unlike the swims of some fish... The lumps were twenty-six or twenty-seven, distinct and not joined together...” In other words, Hutchinson had delivered a molar pregnancy. This is a condition that occurs when fertilization of the ovum by the sperm is abnormal. This is a potentially dangerous condition for women, which can lead to an aggressive kind of cancer. However, to Winthrop, this molar pregnancy was a sign of God’s “displeasure” with Anne Hutchinson for her sins against the colony. Discussing her in conjunction with another woman, Ann Dyer, a poet and a Quaker who had experienced her own pregnancy loss, Winthrop stated that God had “caus[ed] the two fomenting women... to produce out of their wombs, as before they had out of their braines, such monstrous births.”
The connection Winthrop makes between the “products” of a woman’s mind and the “products” of her uterus is striking– as is the fact that a minister and politician was “called” to travel and examine Hutchinson’s uterine contents. It was not uncommon for ministers at this time to express interest in pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, as these subjects often served as a source for religious metaphor. However, that Winthrop ties this poor outcome to Hutchinson’s actions is notable– especially in light of the increasing incidence of present-day American women being held criminally liable for their pregnancy outcomes. Winthrop set an intellectual precedent in his journal as an individual (and a religious authority at that) trained in neither medicine nor midwifery making determinations about pregnancy and birth, and this precedent has held up with remarkable consistency in our time. We need only consider the countless attempts on the part of legislators to restrict access to abortion and other forms of reproductive healthcare. Additionally, we have seen an increase in the incidence of criminalization of pregnancy outcomes. Between 1973 and 2020, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women have identified over 1700 cases of “arrests, detentions, and equivalent deprivations of physical liberty of women… in which being pregnant was a necessary element of the crime or a ‘but for’ reason for the coercive or punitive action taken.” Given the constant attempts to roll back the protections afforded by Roe v. Wade, to codify the start of life at conception, and to establish a notion of “fetal personhood,” we can only expect such cases to increase in frequency.
Anne Hutchinson died a violent death in exile at the age of 52. The last years of her life, marked as they were by controversy, scandal, and loss– of her pregnancy, her community, and her role as midwife and de facto preacher– are a testament to just how dangerous it could be for a woman to speak her mind in the seventeenth century. It took the state of Massachusetts well over 300 years to pardon her in 1987 for her role in the Antinomian Controversy. Today, she has a parkway named after her in New York State (it cuts through the present-day Bronx, where she ultimately died). Perhaps she will eventually be more widely known for her role as a midwife and leader rather than as a heretic and an exile. For her courage and determination, she certainly ought to be considered a founding mother.
