Description
Testing Women, Testing the Fetus is a book about prenatal testing and its social impact and cultural meaning. The book includes the stories of the people who have experienced prenatal testing, and it discusses the complex questions that have arisen as a result of prenatal testing.
This work explores the complex and contradictory nature of prenatal diagnosis and its social impact and cultural meaning through the narratives of the people who have experienced it. Rich with the voices and stories of participants, these touching firsthand accounts examine how women of diverse racial, ethnic, class and religious backgrounds perceive prenatal testing. This Pandora's box of moral issues has prompted complex questions such as: What do women want and not want from technology in pregnancy?; What conditions are worth an abortion?; And how do women receiving a bad diagnosis cope with their ultimate decisions? Review: ... this is a wonderful book, ranging far beyond mere amniocentesis....Rayna Rapp has created a biting and sometimes humorous commentary abot how medical and scientific information is disseminated, absorbed and acted upon....Rapp tells a fascinating story about amniocentesis as social process, exploring the topic from historical, cultural and linguistic perspectives....One of the most refreshing things about the book is its readability. The personal narrative weaves a web of experience that the reader immediately shares. - The Women's Review of Books By observing genetic counselors at work and talking to families raising children with disabilities, [Rapp] discovers the practical problems connecte with testing and the different responses to pregnancy, family life, and disability in diverse ethnic groups and social classes. - Library Journal Rapp's deep analysis is relevant to women of every ethnic, religious and class background and asks the necessary questions preceding each potentially difficult choice. - Daily News [A] monumental and challenging study....[a] rigorous illumination of both the scientific and the social practices of amniocentesis. So impressive is this achievement, indeed, that I think it possible to say that Testing Women, Testing the Fetus may provide us with a model of intellectual deportment that anthropologists, genetic counselors, medical professionals, bioethicists, research scientists, and even cultural critics -- yes them too -- will do well to acknowledge and emulate. -Michael Berube, Tikkun If you like to know everything about a subject before making a decision--and you're facing an amnio--you'll get support andinformation from Testing Women, Testing the Fetus. . . Rapp . . . shares a wide variety of compelling human stories that are rarely told. - Colorado Parent, Feb. 2000
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