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In the face of widespread discrimination against the disabled and a eugenic culture which pathologises disability and crushes diversity, comes a new book which radically challenges the status quo. 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 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.Melinda Tankard Reist is an Australian writer with a special interest in women's health, new reproductive technologies and medical abuses of women. She is the author of Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief after Abortion. She has been a contributor to China for Women: Travel and Culture, Cat Tales, A Girl's Best Friend, and HorseDreams.