Prenatal diagnostic testing and disability – the bioethical debate
Almost every pregnant woman in Sweden is offered prenatal diagnostic testing today. But how does prenatal testing differ from screening, and what are the risks from an ethical perspective?
Niklas Juth is Professor of Medical Ethics and research leader at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics at Uppsala University. Recently, he appeared in the interview series "I soffan med" led by Therése Fridström Montoya, Director of the Centre for Disability Research. The interview focused on screening, prenatal diagnostic testing and disability. Niklas Juth highlighted the different positions in the debate about prenatal diagnostic testing – and the ethical questions those positions raise.
On the one hand, prenatal testing can detect life-threatening and painful diseases, where the child lives only a very short time after birth. On the other hand, there may be risks with prenatal diagnostics from an ethical perspective.
The aim of screening programmes after we are born are focused on treatment, such as the PKU heel-prick test for newborns or mammography to detect breast cancer. In prenatal testing, the result of a positive test is a difficult choice, where the "treatment" involves deciding whether or not to terminate the pregnancy.
Want to know more? The interview in available in Swedish: "I soffan med Niklas Juth".
By Fanny Klingvall