ABSTRACT
Three and four dimensional sonograms are the latest image to enter the iconography of the abortion debate. This chapter explores that the use of the analytic tools of semiotics, deconstructive reading and appeals to embodied knowledge that many feminists have employed to challenge the iconic images of the abortion debate and defend the legality of abortion. The 1967 Abortion Act legalized abortion up to 28 weeks in England, Scotland and Wales, provided that two doctors agree that to continue the pregnancy would involve injury to the woman's mental or physical health or pose a risk to her. Abortion procedures are rarely depicted and the products of abortion are typically represented by photographs of bloody late term foetuses, greatly enlarged before display. The scenes that Black films are quite different and so add to the repertoire of representations of abortion available in contemporary culture. The two-dimensional technofetus is not truly interrogated as part of the iconography of the abortion debate.
