ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a case study in the making of a medical syndrome. Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) has been linked to a range of symptoms including face and body abnormalities, lower intelligence and abnormal social behaviour – including 'bad judgement'. The chapter examines some questions about that panic and to unpack some of the social and political currents running through and structuring this particular packaging of medical knowledge and popular culture. Mothers as objects of suspicion are institutionalized in medical ideology and technology. Pediatric and child-development theories often presuppose maternal inadequacy and dangerousness. Obstetric technological monitoring and genetic testing embody new versions of these suspicions about women in relation to their biological nurturing of the foetus. The medical model mobilized by Michael Dorris and circulated in the media and some popular culture has been orientated around maternal blame. A feminist reconceptualization would begin not by warning women of the dangers of drinking, but by rethinking the problem of maternal drinking.
