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Negotiating the Therapeutic Gap: Prenatal Diagnostics and Termination of Pregnancy in Sri Lanka

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Abstract

In Sri Lanka, termination of pregnancy, other than in extreme circumstances, is strictly illegal. Among the public and large sections of the medical community there is widespread support for some degree of liberalization of the law, particularly where this relates to serious genetic conditions which can be identified prenatally. Tension emerges out of a publicly maintained conservatism on issues of abortion on the one hand and a growing disconnection from unregulated practices of termination in the private sector on the other. Social science approaches have much to contribute when understanding the ‘therapeutic gap’ that opens up and, in particular, the way that local ideas of fate, destiny and how suffering might be ameliorated become blended with the predictive power of genetic testing.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Vajira Dissanayake, Professor Rohan Jayasekera and Mr. Daksita Wickremasinghe for their help and co-operation in the conduct of the surveys referred to in this paper and their role in developing some of the ideas therein. The analysis and conclusions, however, remain entirely my own.

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Correspondence to Bob Simpson.

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Simpson, B. Negotiating the Therapeutic Gap: Prenatal Diagnostics and Termination of Pregnancy in Sri Lanka. Bioethical Inquiry 4, 207–215 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-007-9070-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-007-9070-5

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