Social Justice in Technologies of Prenatal Care: Toward a User Centered Approach to Technical Communication in Home Pregnancy Testing

This article explores two questions increasingly posed by technical communications scholars: "What implicit moral or ethical assumptions exist in the contexts of health and medical communication? If we are aware of these assumptions, what practices can technical communicators engage in to promote social justice in these contexts?". In the specific instance of home pregnancy test packaging and instructions, the lack of attention to social justice concerns is evidenced when comparing this system-centered technical communication to user-centered online health forums wherein users discuss their lived experiences with the tests, expressing frustration to outright fear. Here, a case study of three brands of home pregnancy tests' packaging offers findings that the technical communication of home pregnancy tests violates an ethic of care to the user. This article proposes that the health and medical communication be brought into alignment with the user-centered, participatory models of online health forums in order to promote social justice in the context of the home pregnancy test.