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The women in this book may be among the last to have babies without the medical stamp of approval.

Today's society demands physical perfection from all and regards medical and scientific technologies as saviours to be embraced whatever the cost. To have a child who has been diagnosed with a disability is deemed not just unnecessary, but careless and even immoral.

Defiant Birth tells the courageous stories of women who continued their pregnancies despite intense pressure from doctors, family members and social expectations. These women were told they shouldn't have their babies because of a perceived imperfection in the child, or because their own disabilities do not fit within the parameters of what a mother should be. In the face of silent disapproval and open hostility, they have confronted the stigma of disability and had their children anyway.

Some of the writers tell of grave misdiagnosis, others of life-changing experiences, discovering the joy and love in children considered unworthy of life.

Melinda Tankard Reist dares to expose how eugenics is practised today, and how it is condoned, even expected, by mainstream society. More than ever before, doctors are diagnosing babies in the womb as less than perfect. But what if the 'cure' they offer will end the child's life?


An invaluable book.
—Nat Hentoff, columnist for United Media Newspaper Syndicate, the Village Voice and the Washington Times.