If you look under the "Samples" section of the website you will see side by side shots of the face of the fetus using this technology and the face of the newborn baby. This comparison of visual images encourages a viewing of the unborn fetus as a life that is viable outside of the mother's womb. The quote on the site says, "clarity in 4d ultrasound images provides a true First Look at infants facial features" (First Look Sonogram). This kind of visual imaging has discursive repercussions around reproductive freedoms and furthers to individualize fetuses while marginalizing the status and health of the mother.
Carol Stabile's article, "Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance," looks at how visual technologies have played a role in the erasure of women's bodies. She argues that, "representations of "fetal personhood" depend upon the erasure of female bodies and the reduction of women to passive, reproductive machines" (172). While this erasure has a panoply of causes, fetal representations are particularly powerful in a society that is saturated in and highly influenced by visual imagery.
Similar to the argument made below in the discussion of "The Onion" article, visual imaging can create a dangerous situation where the fetus is given personhood over the mother and in turn threaten reproductive freedoms (see below).
works cited: "First Look Sonogram." 12 May 2008 http://4dbaby.com/
Stabile, Carol. "Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance." The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science. Ed. Paula A. Treichler, Lisa Cartwright, and Constance Penley. New York: New York University Press, 1998. 171-197.
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