Abstract
This paper is based on interviews with disabled people about pregnancy and prenatal diagnoses. Medical professionals who provide these diagnoses point two advantages. One is that a patient can have a “healthy” child, and the other is that parents, especially the mother, suffer less of a burden whether they choose to bear and bring up a disabled child or decide on an abortion. I review these advantages through the narratives of three people with disabilities whose impairments are issues in preimplantation or a prenatal diagnosis. The three state that we should have a clear understanding of the medicalization of our society, which invents “patients” through the application of medical technology, and that we need to create alternative values to the norm which argues that we ought to have our “own child” who is “healthy.”
