Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics

HT: Birth Story


Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics

Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics, tells the personal stories of women who have resisted medical eugenics – women who were told they shouldn’t have babies because of perceived disability in themselves or shouldn’t have babies because of some imperfection in the child. They have confronted the stigma of disability and in the face of silent disapproval and even open hostility, had their children anyway, in the belief that all life is valuable and that some are not more worthy of it than others.

This is a book about women who have dared challenge the utilitarian medical model/mindset. Disparaged and treated as pariahs for departing from accepted medical wisdom they have chosen non-compliance with medical/social prejudice and defiantly said yes to their babies, and no to the cult of perfection.