ABSTRACT
To summarise the main points of my argument, my findings suggest that the label ‘high risk’ in the context of health care provision in pregnancy creates a subject whose sense of security is threatened. In talking through risk with other potentially vulnerable individuals, a variety of discursive ‘coping strategies’ are, however, in evidence, suggesting that, while vulnerable, the ‘at-risk’ self can negotiate, and even challenge, the objective classifications of risk made by health care providers. Whether attempts to destabilise medical definitions of risk by subjects can be seen as a threat to the status of antenatal testing and the values and interests of the National Health Service is, however, questionable.
