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Prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion: A challenge to practice and policy

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  • Asch, A.

Abstract

Professionals should reexamine negative assumptions about the quality of life with prenatally detectable impairments and should reform clinical practice and public policy to improve informed decision making and genuine reproductive choice. Current data on children and families affected by disabilities indicate that disability does not preclude a satisfying life. Many problems attributed to the existence of a disability actually stem from inadequate social arrangements that public health professionals should work to change. This article assumes a pro-choice perspective but suggests that unreflective uses of prenatal testing could diminish, rather than expand, women's choices. This critique challenges the view of disability that lies behind the social endorsement of such testing and the conviction that women will or should end their pregnancies if they discover that the fetus has a disabling trait.

Suggested Citation

  • Asch, A., 1999. "Prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion: A challenge to practice and policy," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(11), pages 1649-1657.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:1999:89:11:1649-1657_9
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    Cited by:

    1. Vassy, Carine & Rosman, Sophia & Rousseau, Bénédicte, 2014. "From policy making to service use. Down's syndrome antenatal screening in England, France and the Netherlands," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 67-74.
    2. Aisling De Paor & Peter Blanck, 2016. "Precision Medicine and Advancing Genetic Technologies—Disability and Human Rights Perspectives," Laws, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-23, August.
    3. Shawna Benston, 2016. "CRISPR, a Crossroads in Genetic Intervention: Pitting the Right to Health against the Right to Disability," Laws, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, February.
    4. Graham, Ruth H. & Robson, Stephen C. & Rankin, Judith M., 2008. "Understanding feticide: An analytic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 289-300, January.

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