Testing Women, Testing the Fetus | Book Review

In this book, now twenty-five years old, American anthropologist Rayna Rapp traces the social impact of amniocentesis in the United States. Among the flood of stories, data, analysis, and ethical-legal assessments in the essay, one detail keeps drawing my attention: Rapp's surprise at a striking finding. Most women who learned their fetus had a malformation and chose not to abort had themselves encountered disability—in their families or among close friends. We've always said it: knowledge is the first key against exclusion, rejection, and stereotype. (The other women in Rapp's "no" group were Catholic.)