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Article: The fetishised fetus: creating 'life' with ultrasound.(GENDER STUDIES)
- Article from:
- Traffic
- Article date:
- July 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 University of Melbourne Postgraduate Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The tendency of the public and medical institutions to perceive fetuses as human is a problematic development because it has the potential to privilege fetuses over women. There is no question that the fetus as subject has been of historical importance. Whereas personhood was once gained through the social world, in Western contemporary society both mothers and fetuses establish identities through reproductive technology and technoscience. As childbirth is an embodied, deeply personal experience for women, I interrogate the emergence of the fetishised public fetus and the postmodern, technologised pregnant female body from which the fetus emerges. I argue that ...