Fictions of Prevention: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and Narratives of Responsibility

Abstract

In February 2016, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) sparked international outrage when it released a press release about safe drinking levels for women. In the name of preventing alcohol-exposed pregnancies, the Center asserted that all women who are not sterile are at risk of creating a child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) if they drink alcohol and are not using contraception. The supporting info graphic also asserted that any woman who drank (while not using contraception) was at risk for a range of negative outcomes including sexually transmitted diseases, fertility problems, and injuries/violence. The press release and info graphic drew fire across social media and in the blogosphere (Tolentino 2016). While the problematic graphic was replaced (Taylor 2016), the message resonated. Criticism focused on questions about the infringement on women's reproductive rights as the CDC appeared to see all women's bodies as always already the vessels of the unborn. This eruption is the latest in a longer story about what it means to frame a disability as preventable. This article puts at the center of the analysis the prevention narratives that surround FASD by looking at contemporary legislative approaches in the US and Canada to address FASD. This article analyzes the fictions of prevention that surround FASD as these narratives not only serve to strip the very context within which the medical phenomenon occurs but also concurrently inform potentially damaging programs, practices, and policies including proposed legislative changes in North America. These legislative changes reflect the sentiment that women's bodies should be sites of intervention, even detention, in the name of reproducing "healthy," productive (future) subjects. We Start in Canada"It is not 100% preventable," Judy replied to my question, sternly adding, "it's not a very widely understood disability in the community." Judy was one of dozens of people I was interviewing in Canada's midwest about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and how it was understood in the justice system. Working for an advocacy group, Judy was in the business of assisting individuals and families with FASD to access resources and needed supports. Judy's comment was in direct opposition to most prevention messages that indicated FASD was 100% preventable. For Judy, this prevention narrative is flawed. FASD was not 100% preventable because Judy would argue that there are many contributing factors when discussing FASD, not least of which is the life circumstances of the woman, the supports available, and overall awareness of the pregnancy -all of which can be easily erased from the discussion when FASD is framed as 100% preventable.Judy was firm in her comments that day. Firm, perhaps, for a number of reasons not least of which was that she was rightly suspicious of a researcher who appeared focused on FASD in the justice system; research that can produce slippery associations and causal relationships between FASD and criminal activity. I have since come to bett...

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