The Biopolitics of the Unborn: A Dutch case of the prenatal testing

Abstract

This research aims to explore the role of biopolitics in the normalisation of prenatal screening in the Western world. By employing the Foucauldian biopolitical lens, I question the transformation of the prenatal screening/diagnosis from a tool to monitor high risk pregnancies to a modern eugenics technology used to separate foetuses into worth living - abled bodies, and not worth living - disabled bodies. Reading the prenatal apparatus as an instance of biopolitics, I show how the medical gaze apprehends both the pregnant body and the foetus as its objects of knowledge, and regulates them through public health practices and policies. In this view, I weave different streams of feminist and disabilities theories and their engagement with the Foucauldian “truth”. On one hand, I unpack the notion of risk employed by the modern governmentality to normalise disability screening, and on the other hand, I build on the critiques on sex selection abortion and selective abortion in case of disability. Through the analysis of a Dutch case study of the prenatal testing, I find the trend of home birth to be not only related to the safety and non-medicalisation of the birth, but also influenced by the cost-effectiveness of home-birth option compared to hospital and birth-centre options. The high perinatal mortality in The Netherlands forces the implementation of a nationwide prenatal testing praxis designed to manage the risk for foetal disabilities and to facilitate that all women can test for disabilities regardless the risk of their pregnancy. The easiness of the Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) and the increase demand for carrier (genetic) screening raise ethical implication, such as the normalisation and trivialisation of selective abortion due to disabilities and the risk of extending the scope of the test for abnormalities, endangering our collective view on “normal” human embodiment.