'...not just the premier
Christian bioethics institute in Britain,
but one of the finest in the
world, Christian or secular'
Most Rev. Anthony Fisher O.P., Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
Prenatal Diagnosis:
Confronting the Ethical Issues
Agneta Sutton
Nowadays virtually every pregnant woman will undergo some kind of prenatal
test during her pregnancy. Prenatal testing can be a vital aid in monitoring
pregnancies for therapeutic reasons with a view to safe deliveries. However, most
prenatal diagnosis is performed in order to prevent the birth of disabled
children.
The first part of this book discusses the medical aspects of the subject, the
establishment of large-scale screening programs and the state of the law with
respect to abortion, child disability, genetic counselling and prenatal
diagnosis with a view to the abortion of disabled foetuses.
The second part of the book outlines the position of the Church with regard
to abortion, and discusses the ethical
implications of various prenatal tests and the appropriate responses of
doctors, midwives and nurses in a society where prenatal testing is increasingly
associated with the practice of abortion.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One: Prenatal Diagnosis
Diagnosable fetal disorders
Prenatal diagnostic techniques and current practice
The distinction between treatable and non-treatable fetal conditions:
the scope of fetal treatment
Eugenics and current attitudes to prenatal diagnosis
Prenatal diagnosis and the abortion of abnormal fetuses: some legal considerations
Part Two: The Ethical Dimension
The tradition of the Catholic Church
Arguments for abortion of abnormal fetuses and the moral status of the
developing human embryo
Social reasons for avoiding the birth of a handicapped child and the
quality of life argument
Justifiability of prenatal procedures and risk assessment
The need for informed consent to diagnostic procedures and the responsibilities
of obstetricians
The special role of the midwife and nurse in the context of prenatal
diagnosis and abortion
Conclusion
Appendices
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Reviews
"The breath of Sutton's
analysis is vast. She draws on biological, medical, legal, and sociological
information. The analysis also includes a review of Roman Catholic tradition
concerning abortion and canonical penalties."
- Kevin T Fitzgerald S.J.
Theological Studies
"This book deserves to be widely read by all who are involved
in the care of the expectant mother."
- Dr F A L da Cunha
The New Day Magazine,
June 1990
"This is an exceptionally important and distinguished book.
Learned and lucid, calm and pithy, it provides a masterly overview of the
ethical, legal and practical implications of prenatal diagnosis, human genetic
control and eugenic abortion.
It begins with an admirable beginner's guide to genetic and chromosomal
disorders and then explains the different techniques of screening, the distinction
between treatable and non-treatable conditions, and therefore between acceptable
and non-acceptable forms of 'treatment', and the responsibilities in all
this of parents, doctors and nurses. There are full notes and bibliography,
plus a 14-page glossary that will tell a layperson all that need be known
about such things as aneuplody, electropheresis, the oligonucleotide probe
and restriction endonuclease.
But the crucial importance of the book is the clarity and precision with
which the pro-life case is explored and vindicated concerning the presence
of personal, rational human life from the moment of fertilisation. Those
who, like Lady Warnock and, more recently, the tiresome Norman Ford, have
tried to make the primitive streak the event are courteously, but irrevocably,
shown the door. So, by implication, are the syngamists. It is the organised,
self-directing, purposive and continuous development of the new being from
fertilisation onwards, together with its functional unity, which defeats
them. The 'problem' of twinning evaporates. It is a non-problem for the
moral theologian, though a baffler still for the biologist. All discussion
of the right to life of the disabled must begin with the decisive distinction
between a human being who starts life 'with what is fundamentally necessary
for human and personal development' but then suffers a grave 'developmental
failure', like anencephaly, and those products of conception which, from
the start, lack the biological prerequisites for human development, like
the hydatidiform mole.
Alongside this (in chapter six) there is a brilliant summary of Catholic
teaching on all these issues which shows the essential coherence of the
Church's teaching on abortion, embryology and sexuality from the Fathers
to the present day. ...This book ... is also compulsory reading for every pro-lifer. Congratulations
to the Linacre Centre for producing it. It is the best thing I have come
across for years. "
