Gestating witch

The criminological discourse of the Inquisition, condensed in the Malleus Maleficarum in the 15th century and heir to practices of persecution and torture developed from the 12th century onwards, made use of the image of the witch to be functional to sectors of power in their enterprise of annihilating and decimating entire populations. This set of practices imprinted on the bodies modes of being and acting necessary for the development of an economic system that required an articulated and controlled model of production/reproduction: capitalism. It is the aim of this paper, as an introductory study for future developments, to analyze the patriarchal criminalization of the (non)maternal body in the access to abortion in Argentina and the continuities of the 15th century demonological discourse from the case Belén, a woman who between 2014 and 2017 spent two years, four months and 23 days imprisoned in the Penitentiary Unit No. 4 of Banda del Río Salí for a miscarriage.