ABSTRACT
Medicine’s role extends beyond the prevention of sickness and maintenance of health to the two poles of human existence: the beginning and end of life. This expansion of medical power, aided by technology, is altering societal perceptions of the manner of procreation of dying and death. Giving medical practitioners the power to judge deviation from a so-called ‘normal’ state as illness prioritizes medical outcomes over other considerations and reinforces the claim to immunity from external accountability. Important aspects of women’s reproductive lives, which were traditionally undertaken by informal medical practitioners, converted natural phases into medical events warranting medical surveillance and intervention. The medicalization of disability shows the way in which medical authority has concealed human rights issues and also the way in which the label ‘medical’ was extended to include non- clinical issues. The combination of technological and scientific developments in reproductive medicine has introduced a new dimension to the means of controlling women’s bodies through medical surveillance and intervention.
