Seeing as Making
Mediation, rhetoric, and the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22003623 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Scott Weedon (0000-0001-9667-4939, Texas Tech University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-31 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Poroi (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2151-2957 • E-ISSN: 2151-2957 |
| Publisher | The University of Iowa (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.17077/2151-2957.31089 |
| OpenAlex | W4210321984 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
How do material and discursive arrangements, technologies and rhetoric, shape the subjects and objects of medical discourse (Scott & Melonçon, 2017; Selzer & Crowley, 1999)? How are the affordances of material and discursive arrangements seized by political actors? Tackling these and similar questions has been a growing preoccupation in the rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine, where researchers have sought better ways of understanding the entanglements of the symbolic and material (Booher & Jung, 2018; Graham, 2009; Jack, 2019; Propen, 2018). A perspicuous case for this research is the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act (UICA), an amendment to the Public Health Service Act mandating that women receive an ultrasound and have its images described to them before having abortions. Three US states have a version of this law, with over twenty others having laws similar to the UICA (Guttmacher Institute, 2019, n.d.). Through this law, antiabortionists are able to construct a kairotic situation through the mediating capacity of ultrasound where they can use the actual state of affairs (a woman seeking an abortion) to argue through images for a possible future (a woman foregoing abortion). This article analyzes the UICA to understand how the political speech of antiabortionists enrolls the moralizing capacity of ultrasound to construct a kairotic situation to intervene in women’s pregnancies. Starting from studies of actor-networks (Latour, 1983;1999a) and technological mediation (Verbeek, 2011; 2015), and departing to feminist rhetorical science studies (Booher & Jung, 2018; Frost & Haas, 2017) and rhetorical approaches to imagery and visualization (Propen, 2018; Roby, 2016; Webb, 2009), I argue that not only do translation processes and technical mediation distribute agencies; they construct the very situations where agencies are constituted. This study can widen our understanding of how political entities appropriate the rhetorical capacities of technology and discourse to translate their politics into legislature
Linguistics · Mediation · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
Decoding Abortion Rhetoric
Baby's First Picture
Ambient rhetoric
Looking in Wonder
How Culture and Science Make Race "Genetic"
Ultrasound
Pump and Circumstance
Obstetric Ultrasound and the Technological Mediation of Morality
Baby's First Picture
Chain of Gold
The rhetoric of auscultation
Embodying normal miracles
Obama in Selma
Seeing and Knowing the Womb
Topologies as Techniques for a Post-Critical Rhetoric
Pandora's hope
At the Margins of Humanity
Cloud Physiognomy
Fetal Images
Getting Real
Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation
Re-visioning Ultrasound through Women's Accounts of Pre-abortion Care in England
| Highly cited | No |
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