The lovely thing about
having a book translated is very different people, with very different
contexts, think about your work. No more interesting context than Germany
exists for my work on Prenatal Testing and its implicit eugenic thinking.
While Americans usually dismiss the idea that there is anything genetic about
these tests (they're just to make sure we have healthy babies!) the Germans
recognize that search for healthy babies to be precisely what eugenics
is ("eu" meaning well, and 'genics" meaning born).
But the hard part about being translated is you really don't understand what's
being said about your work! Recently, Schone Neue Welt der Fortpflanzung was discussed on a radio program in Germany. So thanks to the kindness of friends, for those who, like me, don't understand German, below is a
rough on-the-fly translation of the radio piece, with some commentary.
Listen to the original broadcast here.
Translation on the fly, by Katharina Rost
I listened to it, here the summary:
They have a science book review twice a year always with a special topic. (I am
just typing along the program...)
This time it has been value of life. Two reporters, one presenting two books by
women who wrote about their own experiences, another your book. They have a
kind of dialogue between these two perspectives. Your perspective, the
perspective of the pregnant women.
They present first one book by a mother prenatally
diagnosed in pregnancy (like my topic).
Your book is like a reference point, providing a look on society’s
for all the other books. This what they
say (I try to type along the program):
"The author is not providing a scientific overview over
prenatal diagnosis methods but provides a overview over the development of the
last 25 years. The author has foreseen
or really early described what is happening in two parts: one about birth and
midwifery, the midwifery model as something which can be put up against the
medical system (then they refer that in the others books the women don’t have a
midwife, talk about the lack of midwife in the experience of the women). It’s about pushing the woman out of her own
pregnancy. And pushing out the midwifes
and how this all is connected. The
bonding via the ultrasound versus the body-bonding. The fetus developing to a person out of the
symbiosis with the mother.
They talk about the tentative pregnancy (reporter is very
surprised, has never heard about it and loves your thoughts :) )
Fetus and mother are put against each other while the woman
needs to be seen as a unity (then they refer to the other books, how the women
feel the symbiosis, how the medical world is cutting this symbiosis and that
for the mothers this symbiosis is not finished; that the mothers don’t seek
medical advice but other support).
For BKR is pregnancy as a special time in life, for midwife care
model, women need to be seen as active.
Then second part: prenatal diagnosis:
What is to be done with knowledge genetic-- how to feed a child
when you know that your child will get sick by 25. They talk about your writing about PND and
the first reporter is always interrupting: Yes, this is how it is! The story of
the women is telling exactly this!
Reporter loves your language: her language is emotional and
plastic and real and very understandable.
Then another book is presented, very interesting. Another woman
who is after the diagnosis researching everything. After that a historical review about the
history of disability politics last century is presented. The last book is
about a woman who is killed in the Third Reich by euthanasia.
Conclusion of the reporter is: How are we dealing with
disability? What is society doing?
Today everything is individualized, but who is really deciding? Why
are medical experts deciding about moral questions society should decide?
BKR is seeing it as a lost battle because it is proceeding and
nobody is putting a limit to it (so you had kind of the last word...)
Very positive reception!!!!!
