Defiant Birth

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’ fetuses 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.

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

Review: Moms as Genetic Outlaws