Throughout history, those with physical and mental impairments have been deemed to be experiencing lives not worth living. The perception of their lives as not worth living has been shaped via numerous social channels. One significant means by which people gain insights and information about disabled people’s lives concerns portrayals and knowledge asserted through forms of popular media. Especially in modern times, literature from the medical community offered to the public has often taken an authoritative tone, which has conveyed taken-for-granted assumptions about the quality of life of those with impairments. This information presented to the public about the lives of impaired people ultimately has the potential to shape significant decisions made by parents concerning whether to continue on with a pregnancy when the unborn fetus is reported to have a risk of a disability after birth. The main goal of this study was to analyze the meanings that are conveyed by the context of information presented concerning having a child with a risk of an impairment by those who claim medical authority. The post-structuralist perspective was utilized in this dissertation research, directing attention to the often unquestioned assumption that to have an impairment is to live a life not worth living. In order to examine the potential impact of popular literature from the medical community, I explored perceptions portrayed by medical professionals about the worthiness of disabled people’s bodies and lives in pregnancy advice books. This study involved conducting an analysis of two different dimensions of the social discourse about this issue: the textual discourse in pregnancy guidebooks and an audience’s perspective of the information offered in the guidebooks. I utilized multiple qualitative methods in order to garner information about this topic. First, I performed a content analysis of the conversation of having a child with a potential disability in a small selection of best-selling pregnancy guidebooks. I followed with interviews with adult women of childbearing age to gain insight into how they interpreted information in the texts and constructed meaning about the desirability of having an impaired child. Specifically, I gained understanding about: (1) Whether the meaning of the language used in pregnancy guidebooks provides positive, neutral, or negative connotations about having a disabled child; and (2) Whether the discourse of this information had an impact on the meanings potential future parents have about the desirability of having an impaired child. This study illuminated the meanings conveyed and formed about a topic that is so often left unexamined in everyday life, yet has potentially life-altering ramifications for so many families.
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