Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in The Politics of Reproduction

Abstract

Antiabortionists in both the United States and Britain have long applied the principle that a picture of a dead fetus is worth a thousand words. Chaste silhouettes of the fetal form, or voyeuristic-necrophilic photographs of its remains, litter the background of any abortion talk. The strategy of antiabortionists to make fetal personhood a self-fulfilling prophecy by making the fetus a public presence addresses a visually oriented culture. Meanwhile, finding “positive” images and symbols of abortion hard to imagine, feminists and other prochoice advocates have all too readily ceded the visual terrain. Aware of cultural trends, the current leadership of the antiabortion movement has made a conscious strategic shift from religious discourses and authorities to medicotechnical ones, in its effort to win over the courts, the legislatures, and popular hearts and minds. The Silent Scream purports to show a medical event, a real-time ultrasound imaging of a twelve-week-old fetus being aborted.

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