ABSTRACT
The commercial availability of ultrasound scans beyond the clinic is an important innovation that is profoundly affecting many women's experiences of pregnancy as well as the cultural discourse around ultrasound. Biotourism is a phenomenon born out of the ways in which medical representations of the body intersect with popular culture. The discourse of biotourism maintains the sacred within the technological experience. This intervention is thus reinterpreted and redeemed through the idea of the journey as a kind of pilgrimage and the invocation of the language of the sublime. Ultrasound discourse is based on a similar cultural fantasy that scanning is an innocent activity that it is just looking. Sawchuk's designation of the journey of the biotourist as pilgrimage removes it from the problematic association with tourism, which is commonly denigrated, and is suggestive of a more profound experience. The application of ideas of pilgrimage and sanctity are helpful in accounting for the power of ultrasound imagery.
