Wrongful birth litigation and prenatal screening

Pioro, Mark; Mykitiuk, Roxanne; Nisker, Jeff

doi:10.1503/cmaj.080454

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The rapid growth of NIPT creates a tension between reproductive rights, on the one hand, and sex equality and respect for persons with disabilities, on the other, especially because NIPT o women the option of early accurate information and earlier termination (152). There is some concern that this tension may be politicized as a tool to limit women's reproductive rights.…”

Section: Reproductive Rights and The Return Of Genetic Disability Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Testing: Current and Emerging Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Minear

Alessi

Allyse

et al. 2015

Annu. Rev. Genom. Hum. Genet.

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Noninvasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) for chromosomal aneuploidy involving the analysis of cell-free fetal DNA became commercially available in 2011. The low false-positive rate of NIPT, which reduces unnecessary prenatal invasive diagnostic procedures, has led to broad clinician and patient adoption. We discuss the ethical, legal, and social issues raised by rapid and global dissemination of NIPT. The number of women using NIPT is anticipated to expand, and the number of conditions being tested for will continue to increase as well, raising concerns about the routinization of testing and negative impacts on informed decision making. Ensuring that accurate and balanced information is available to all pregnant women and that access to NIPT is equitable will require policy guidance from regulators, professional societies, and payers. Empirical evidence about stakeholders' perspectives and experiences will continue to be essential in guiding policy development so that advances in NIPT can be used effectively and appropriately to improve prenatal care.

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Section: Reproductive Rights and The Return Of Genetic Disability Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Testing: Current and Emerging Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Minear

Alessi

Allyse

et al. 2015

Annu. Rev. Genom. Hum. Genet.

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“…Wrongful birth claims strengthens the perspective that the birth of a child with a disability is a harm for which there may be compensation. 30,31 Many of these dilemmas go beyond the physician-patient encounter and include third parties, raising the nature and limits of physician duties to third parties as the core conceptual issue.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Principle of Double Effect, Genetic Testing, and Global Developmental Delay

Tervo

Wojda

2009

J Child Neurol

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Well-intended efforts to diagnose a child's developmental delay may have unintended negative consequences for a child and his family. Consequently, clinicians may feel caught in a moral dilemma: between doing the good they seek and avoiding the harm they foresee. The dilemma is that when investigating global developmental delay it is not possible to avoid all the anticipated negative outcomes of genetic testing and concurrently fulfill our obligations to do the good from which these harmful effects result. It is imperative to recognize dilemmas especially where the moral questions or relevant facts are not as clear cut as in ethics textbooks and to bring their moral questions into a structured dialogue with the patient and his or her family. A modified principle of double effect is a useful method for deliberating about these moral cases. Three case examples illustrate the utility of the principle of double effect when investigating global developmental delay.

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“…Such cases have been termed “wrongful abortion” lawsuits. Wrongful birth claims are ethically contentious: if in fact a pregnancy is terminated because of predicted anomalies, a conflict may come into being between the reproductive rights of women and the respect for the disabled [ 53 ]. Such conflict is further amplified if physicians can be held legally accountable for failing to recommend prenatal screening to their patients, and if a child is eventually born with a genetic condition that could have been foreseen.…”

Section: High Medicolegal Standards Must Be Met In Order To Avoid mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) Associated with Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing: Reflections on the Evolution of Prenatal Diagnosis and Procreative Choices

Zaami

Orrico

Signore

et al. 2021

Genes

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New technologies such as non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), capable of analyzing cell-free fetal DNA in the maternal bloodstream, have become increasingly widespread and available, which has in turn led to ethical and policy challenges that need addressing. NIPT is not yet a diagnostic tool, but can still provide information about fetal genetic characteristics (including sex) very early in pregnancy, and there is no denying that it offers valuable opportunities for pregnant women, particularly those at high risk of having a child with severe genetic disorders or seeking an alternative to invasive prenatal testing. Nonetheless, the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) include multiple aspects of informed decision-making, which can entail risks for the individual right to procreative autonomy, in addition to the potential threats posed by sex-selective termination of pregnancy (in light of the information about fetal sex within the first trimester), and the stigmatization and discrimination of disabled individuals. After taking such daunting challenges into account and addressing NIPT-related medicolegal complexities, the review’s authors highlight the need for an ethically and legally sustainable framework for the implementation of NIPT, which seems poised to become a diagnostic tool, as its scope is likely to broaden in the near future.

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Wrongful birth litigation and prenatal screening

Cited by 13 publications

References 17 publications

Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Testing: Current and Emerging Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Testing: Current and Emerging Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

The Principle of Double Effect, Genetic Testing, and Global Developmental Delay

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) Associated with Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing: Reflections on the Evolution of Prenatal Diagnosis and Procreative Choices

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