ABSTRACT

There has been a proliferation of the forms through which birth and death are visualised: fictional depictions on television and film as well as ‘real’ births uploaded to YouTube. As well as analysing the multiple forms through which birth and death are visualised (or not, as is often the case with ordinary deaths) we think through how this impacts upon how people understand and think about and imagine the possibilities for their own births and deaths. Instead of seeing images of birth and death in contrast to what ‘really’ happens, we think about how birth and death intersect and interrelate. We also consider the policy implications of making visible and making public things usually associated with the private and intimate – giving birth and dying. The politics of the image and visualisation are also profoundly ethical and, as Sontag argues, raise matters of conscience, because the image has its own materiality and thus reality and can appeal to conscience and not only what it is possible to think, but also what it is morally acceptable to think as well as to show.