Bioethics 23 (1):68-77 (2009)
Abstract |
Prenatal screening, consisting of maternal serum screening and nuchal translucency screening, is on the verge of expansion, both by being offered to more pregnant women and by screening for more conditions. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have each recently recommended that screening be extended to all pregnant women regardless of age, disease history, or risk status. This screening is commonly justified by appeal to the value of autonomy, or women's choice. In this paper, I critically examine the value of autonomy in the context of prenatal screening to determine whether it justifies the routine offer of screening and the expansion of screening services. I argue that in the vast majority of cases the option of prenatal screening does not promote or protect women's autonomy. Both a narrow conception of choice as informed consent and a broad conception of choice as relational reveal difficulties in achieving adequate standards of free informed choice. While there are reasons to worry that women's autonomy is not being protected or promoted within the limited scope of current practice, we should hesitate before normalizing it as part of standard prenatal care for all.
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Keywords | maternal serum screening choice prenatal screening relational autonomy ethics informed consent autonomy |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00674.x |
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References found in this work BETA
Imagining Oneself Otherwise.Catriona Mackenzie - 2000 - In Catriona Mackenzie & Natalie Stoljar (eds.), Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. Oup Usa.
Normalizing Reproductive Technologies and the Implications for Autonomy.Susan Sherwin - forthcoming - Globalizing Feminist Bioethics.
The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature-Nurture Debate.Diane B. Paul - 1999 - Journal of the History of Biology 32 (2):395-397.
Citations of this work BETA
On the Cutting Edge: Ethical Responsiveness to Cesarean Rates.Sylvia Burrow - 2012 - American Journal of Bioethics 12 (7):44-52.
The Shifting Landscape of Prenatal Testing: Between Reproductive Autonomy and Public Health.Vardit Ravitsky - 2017 - Hastings Center Report 47 (s3):S34-S40.
Ethical Considerations for Choosing Between Possible Models for Using NIPD for Aneuploidy Detection.Zuzana Deans & Ainsley Janelle Newson - 2012 - Journal of Medical Ethics 38 (10):614-618.
Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Decision Making Regarding Noninvasive Prenatal Testing: A Comparative Study of Lebanon and Quebec.Hazar Haidar, Meredith Vanstone, Anne-Marie Laberge, Gilles Bibeau, Labib Ghulmiyyah & Vardit Ravitsky - 2018 - Ajob Empirical Bioethics 9 (2):99-111.
Printing Unrealistic Expectations: A Closer Look at Newspaper Representations of Noninvasive Prenatal Testing.Anjali R. Truitt & Michael H. V. Nguyen - 2015 - Ajob Empirical Bioethics 6 (1):68-80.
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