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Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics
Melinda Tankard Reist

1-876756-59-4

Author and journalist Melinda Tankard Reists – controversial new book, DEFIANT BIRTH says that society’s demands for physical perfection are placing enormous pressure on women to terminate ‘imperfect’ foetuses diagnosed by prenatal technology.
The intensely moving and courageous stories of 20 women who continued their pregnancies despite immense pressure from doctors, family members and social expectations to terminate, are told in DEFIANT BIRTH.

DEFIANT BIRTH is the story of women from around the world who were told they should not have their babies because of perceived disabilities – either in the child or themselves. Facing silent disapproval and sometimes open hostility, the book chronicles what happened when these women went ahead and had their babies anyway.

Tankard Reist says DEFIANT BIRTH challenges widespread medical, and often social aversion to less than perfect pregnancies or genetically different babies. It also features women with disabilities who were discouraged from becoming pregnant at all.

She argues that the widespread practice of prenatal screening and abortion are a continuation of eugenics, which is a view that we must weed out the imperfect in order to perfect the human race. Those with the best genetic makeup are valued over those considered genetically flawed.

“Prenatal screening may appear to give pregnant women more power but often it actually takes choices away,” says Tankard Reist.

DEFIANT BIRTH tells the frank and courageous of women who have persevered through enormous adversity, social prejudices and suffering to defy the worst predictions. It will be launched in March by Spinifex Press. Contributors Leisa Whitaker and Teresa Streckfuss, will speak at the launch.

The Author
Melinda Tankard Reist is an Australian writer and researcher with a special interest in bioethics and women’s health. She is also author of Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion

Defiant Birth by Melinda Tankard Reist is published by Spinifex, rrp $29.95
For extracts/interviews please contact Karen Williams, publicity, on (02) 9388 0087 or 04040 7924 or email: kjwilliams@intercoast.com.au

CASE STUDIES from DEFIANT BIRTH
DEFIANT BIRTH tells the heart-wrenching story of Julia Anderson (married to the ex-deputy Prime Minister John Anderson) whose fifth child, Andrew, was diagnosed with Down Syndrome with extreme medical complications.

In the book Julia Anderson says however that despite the intense struggle and heartache and the fact that their son was home for less than three weeks in the first five months of his life, he ‘overhauled’ their family on the inside. As her husband John Anderson says:

“Andrew’s life saw us often wondering what we had done to deserve so much difficulty. His passing sees us wondering what we did to deserve so rich a blessing as his short six-month life was ultimately meant to be. He revealed much to us about our own feelings, weaknesses and inadequacies”.

DEFIANT BIRTH also tells the story of Melbourne-based mother Leisa Whitaker who was born with achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism. When she became pregnant Leisa was automatically offered a termination. Her specialist asked her whether she wanted to bring another dwarf baby into the world.

She says (page 222): “Why would we not want her? Why would the world not accept our child? I think society finds us a challenge to deal with, as we are normal, intelligent human beings living in a body that is not viewed as acceptable”.

Additional stories in DEFIANT BIRTH highlight the fact that prenatal testing is not infallible. Many of the women who spent most of their pregnancies defending their right to have the baby and against incredible medical opposition, went on to deliver healthy babies. (Page 84/Diana D. Aldrich); (page 111/Sandi Seyferth who says that her daughter Grace is a constant reminder that you never lose faith even when all seems hopeless. Or Nirmmala Jegathesan (page 120) whose third child was showing ‘cystic hy-droma’ but who was born without the condition.

ISBN 1876756594
pb
Territories:World
All rights:Spinifex

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