The Framework of Medical Imaging

We live in a technology driven world. Our generation has been born into this technology and has accepted it in the ways we were socialized. Many of these technologies have human-like capabilities, and so we view them with human-like qualities. One of these qualities is the ability to “peer”. Medical technologies such as cameras, x-rays, etc., have the ability to photograph or view the inside of our bodies. However, they do not have the connection of eyes or a brain to be able to actually “see” what they are looking at. Instead, these machines capture images for users to see, so all peering is facilitated by humans, not machines.

Valerie Hartouni talks about this in her article “Fetal Exposures: Abortion Politics and Optics of Allusion.” One of these popular imaging technologies is the sonogram. Carol Stabile also addressed the topic of viewing the fetus in her article “Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance.” The sonogram is a medical technology that uses sound waves to create an image of the inside of someone, in this case: the fetus inside the mother. This medical instrument has become so common that it is an expected procedure done many times on all expectant mothers who receive a doctor’s care. The language we use surrounding this procedure gives it much more credit than it deserves. Common phrases such as “we’re going to see our baby” or “we got to look at the baby” show a lack of understanding that the reproduction of an image based on sound waves is not an actual picture of the baby as if the camera was in the womb. Stabile writes that these technologies often forget the role of the mother and isolate the fetus. The pictures printed from a sonogram are a shot of just the uterus. No other part of the mother is visible, making the image seem even more like a personal photograph of the baby. It is also often forgotten that the device was created with a purpose perhaps other than for the parents to take a peek at the baby. Hartouni mentioned in her article that the device was created and is often used with the intent that seeing the actual baby will make a mother less likely to have an abortion.

This technology behind ways of peering is also evident in other areas of the medical field. The detection of cancer is largely based on images, and Jackie Stacey points to the effects of this visual culture in her book Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer. Medical imaging technologies are all created to look for evidence of something the naked eye cannot see. Just like a sonogram is viewed as evidence of a baby, medical imaging is also used to detect as a mass as evidence of cancer. What is the purpose of having the knowledge? Some may say both cancer detection and images of fetuses are ways of sustaining life. I would argue that medical imaging devices are a source of power. It gives the doctor the power to decide what the next step in treatment will be. It also often gives the patient the power to make a decision about their body.

“Peering” into the body is done in many ways and can serve many purposes. Whether it is to discover a possible life or a possible destroyer of life, medical imaging provides a visual representation of something we are not supposed to see. While who are against abortions argue that it is disturbing nature to take away a life, the use of medical imaging devices are disturbing nature by stopping many deadly diseases and problems that would otherwise go undetected and lead to death. Our tech-generation has been raised to view any technology as a good thing, but the goodness, badness, usefulness, and power behind these ways of seeing all depend on the framework in which they are being both used and thought about.

Hartouni, Valerie. “Fetal Exposures: Abortion Politics and Optics of Allusion.” The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science. Eds Paula A. Treichler, Lisa Cartwright, and Constance Penley. New York: NYU Press, 1998. 171-97.

Stabile, Carol. “Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance.” The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science. Eds Paula A. Treichler, Lisa Cartwright, and Constance Penley. New York: NYU Press, 1998. 171-97.

Stacey, Jackie. “Visions.” Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer. New York: Routledge, 1997. 137-76.