"As with any visual image, The Silent Scream relies on our predisposition to "see" what it wants us to "see" because of a range of influences that come out of the particular culture and history in which we live. The aura of medical authority, the allure of technology, the cumulative impact of a decade of fetal images- on billboards, in shopping center malls, in science fiction blockbusters like 2001: A Space Odyssey-all rescue the film from utter absurdity; they make it credible. "The fetal form" itself has, within the larger culture, acquired a symbolic import that condenses within it a series of losses-from sexual innocence to compliant women to American imperial might. It is not the image of a baby at all but of a tiny man, a homunculus."