on 3D

The G&M tries to stir the placental pot with a story today about the market for spa ultrasounds- 3D imaging available after about 20 weeks gestation at $100-200 for a half hour or so of fetal footage that includes a running commentary about how the fetus is moving this or that limb and-yes- announcements of “It’s a girl!”. Presumably the exclusive purpose of this spa treatment is like any spa treatment: entertainment. I think I’d rather have neon decals superglued to two inch acrylic nails than waste a half hour on this type of entertainment, but to each her own. The G&M asks such “controversial” questions as:
Is it dangerous to the fetus to expose it to nondiagnostic ultrasounds?
Is it fair for people to get to buy this kind of boutiquey “health care”?
Will this technology spur people (especially South Asians(?)) to abort fetuses they discover to be female?

Then the G&M (okay, writer Wency Lueng) makes a connection between this technology and BC’s Lakhvinder Kahlon’s killing last month of his 2 year old daughter because poor darling was sad he hadn’t had a son yet. This tidbit isn’t “controversial"- it’s just horrifically irrelevant journalistic space-filling. Killing toddlers because you are a sexist psychopath has nothing to do with Cadillac ultrasounding.

Nobody knows if it is dangerous to expose the fetus to some unnecessary ultrasounds. Health Canada hasn’t found any danger, but honestly that isn’t saying a whole hell of a lot and Health Canada regularly gives the go ahead when it should keep the red flag tucked in its breast pocket. I am not even sure this matters. We do know in addition to the no-nos of eating soft unpasteurized cheeses and boozing it up, it is dangerous to get mani-pedis (or any service in the vicinity of nail polishing) while pregnant, because the phlalates in the polish can cause little boy fetuses to keep their testicles all nestled up inside their bodies forever more. This possibility does not scare too many people away from the spa…in fact, little luxuries like massage, facials and oh, Brazilian waxes are very popular among pregnant women. [For the record, OPI has removed phlalates from it’s products, and if you aren’t using OPI, your aesthetician is a cheapskate].

While it probably isn’t fair to call this service “health care”, it is certainly fair for expectant parents to shell out for it. Just as they are free as a bird to buy the Hummer of strollers and a matching purebred Golden Retriever and lattes on Lawrence and Yonge. The only problem is if these high resolution images show something, in which case it’s back into the public system for rounds of diagnosis and possibly treatment or late-term abortion. It’s along the same lines as the two-tier market for plastic surgery: you pay for your liposuction, and my tax dollars will pay to save your life when the procedure is botched. We accept this because every one of us enjoys something in the private sphere that makes us dependent on the public health program: sports, beauty, sloth, sex, etc.- fun, risky business.

And no, this technology will not spur more gender-selective abortion, simply because you can’t even get an elective abortion in Canada after 20 weeks. Having this technology available would not have changed Kahlon’s homicidal mission. At twenty weeks, knowing fetal gender allows two things: twenty more weeks of colour-coded shopping, or twenty weeks of working up a fit of misogynistic rage.

Admittedly, normalizing early knowledge of fetal gender is a boom for consumerism, and legitimizes essentializing discussion about gender generally.

“Oh! You are having a boy…here’s little camo onesie...well, boys will be boys!”

Senseless spending and squishing the dynamic human into the paralyzing confines of gender stereotypes as early as possible both, well, suck. With all pregnancy gadgetry, one wonders how long until using this service is so ubiquitous as to be semi-required, either socially or (ugh) medically, like fetal heart monitors, epidurals and the hospital birth, period.

What I really want to talk about, what I think is really inflammatory, is asking what the hell we can do about socio-cultural structures that are so disgusted with the births of girls that potential parents choose not to abort because the pregnancy was unwanted, but to abort because a girl is unwanted. And what can be done about people like Kahlon who hate women so much they want them dead when they are still crawling? Develop an ultrasonic system to detect fevers of infanticide in potential parents, and a automatic lever booby trap that drenches them with a tsunami of contraceptive foam?