Week 8 Virtual Discussant

Hi all! Since discussion was a little less formal last session, I wanted to provide you with the article re-caps I had prepared for the day, as well as some questions to think about:

Fetal Views: Histories and Habits of Looking at the Fetus in Germany

·      Erikson’s main argument here is that the point we’re at now was not inevitable.

·      “The compulsion to look into unlit bodily spaces is…no something one is born wanting…to do.”

·      Germany has highest rates of prenatal ultrasound use

o   79’ Germany became the first nation to make ultrasound mandatory

·      “privileging of the visual in medical domains”

o   Korperwelten exhibitions

o   16^th century: knowledge of bodily interiors only to small group of wealthy, educated males

o   Lennart Nilsson’s photographs in Life (1960s) à WHO looks at fetuses

o   Vesalius anatomy text (first accurate) little mention of female, pregnancy, fetus

o   16^th century shift: touching as knowing à seeing as knowing

§  speculum allowed men to look midwives found it unnecessary

§  looking à transfer of power

·      feminist critique of ultrasound imagery: fetus as autonomous, woman as absent

·      new technologies required understanding of fetal view: forceps, C-section

·      18^th and 19^th century maternal/infant death rates high à hospitals had access rights to bodies

·      early 20^th century campaigns in US and Germany to familiarize public with anatomy as a public health measure

·      “society wide fetishization of the visible”

·      we’ve talked about shift in who, shift in how (touch à see)…now nature of fetus (deadàliving)

·      X-ray use marked the point when obstetricians claimed knowledge superior to the owners of the wombs themselves

·      Ultrasounds also enable procedures that depend on viewing the uterus in real time

·      “obstetricians use ultrasound to ferret out risky maternal and fetal conditions; parents use ultrasound to see their future children”

o   “baby television” colloquialism

o   confirm health, not id risks

·      early use: estimate gestational age, detect twins, possible breech

·      “prenatal diagnostic ultrasound is the only routine scan in all of medicine for which the only treatment is death”

·      Ends with a reflection on the feminist argument that women should reject ultrasound to reclaim their reproductive subjectivity; Erikson argues its more than that…the whole history of how fetal health is conceptualized and how medical knowledge is obtained

 “Of Sonograms and Baby Prams”

·      Reproduction constructed as a matter of consumption

·      Fetus constructed as commodity

o   Simultaneously constructed more as a person

·      Analogy to production

o   With drs as managers, women as workers, babies as products

§  Ultrasounds enforce these roles (managers power, fetus value, women alienated)

·      Ultrasounds bypass women as source of information about pregnancy (ie gestational age)

·      Quality-control

o   Also points out that no treatment exists, just abortion

·      Medical guidelines recommend against routine screening

·      Ethnographic research for a year in a Chicago obstetrics/gynecology hospital interviewed women, ultrasound manufactures, sonography educators

o   Ultrasound not just for measurements, also bonding

·      Find out gender to shop, reflective of consumer culture surrounding parenthood

o   Daunting test of capabilities

o   Some don’t for superstitious reasons

o   Recognizes the fetus as a consumer, person

o   Baby showers

·      Pregnancy as consumption

o   Birth control, pregnancy tests à more controlled

o   What you eat is maternal love

o   Commoditized experience: to give birth, baby classes, books, birth plans

o   Fetus as social commodity…addition to family

§  Create social identity with features during ultrasounds

·      Ultrasound tech’s interactions with young African American women

o   Didn’t take pregnancy seriously enough to deserve extra info

·      Attributes rise of ultrasound to capitalist context

Discussion Questions

The texts voice concerns that ultrasounds “reduce” women. Is this accurate? Are there any ways to conceptualize ultrasound technology as empowering?

The articles pointed out the flawed logic associated with emotional bonding and entertainment that comes with visualizing the fetus. Is this harmful?

One text attributes the rise of ultrasound to development of the ways scientific knowledge is constructed, the other to a capitalist context…where do these views intersect?

Pregnancy as consumption is highly visible. How does this relate to the performance of pregnancy?