Hall, Melinda (2013) Mere Deviation, Critically Assessing Prenatal Testing. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

This paper calls fresh attention to ethical problems surrounding prenatal testing by focusing on genetic knowledge gained through evolving testing procedures. Advances in reproductive and prenatal genetic testing include non-invasive tests, such as Verifi and Materniti21, designed to gather detailed information regarding fetal DNA as early as 10 weeks. Meanwhile, a new method of chromosomal microarray has proved more reliable than karyotyping (visual screening) in detecting fetal abnormality. This method detects abnormalities in 1 out of every 60 pregnancies in which karyotyping identified the fetus as “normal.” Chromosomal microarray directly compares fetal DNA to DNA from a presumptively “healthy person” to identify genetic deviations (Wapner et al 2012, Fitzgerald 2012). The chromosomal microarray method thus assumes a human genetic blueprint—that is, a normal genotype, deviance from which is risky and open to medical diagnosis. But, according to philosopher and geneticist Jackie Leach Scully (2008), there is no genetic blueprint for human beings. Rather, genetic variation is constant. Thus, notes Scully, genetic discourse could free medical discourse from the dictates of the binary between normal and abnormal, although mistaken belief in a genetic blueprint can foil this alternative way of speaking and thinking.

Prenatal testing has received critical philosophical attention from both disability theorists and feminists. Adrienne Asch (2003, 2005) suggests that prenatal testing and diagnosis stigmatizes already-existing persons with disabilities by suggesting that bodily deviance is intolerable. Licia Carlson (2002) coined the phrase “prenatal prototypes” to describe the obfuscating results of genetic profiling carried out on the fetus (she claims that prenatal prototypes are constructed from genetic information divorced from phenotype and so are necessarily partial). The philosophical conversation Asch and Carlson stimulate involves higher stakes now that testing uncovers fetal genotype and reveals mere genetic deviation in order to aid reproductive decision-making.

I argue that prenatal testing, and especially the most recently developed testing procedures described above, forecloses Scully’s alternative discourse of genetic variation by supporting an ideal of a singular “healthy genotype,” deviance from which is to be uncovered and avoided. Mobilizing this insight by drawing on the work of feminist disability scholars like Asch and Carlson, I seek to foreground the play between norm and deviance. I expose the normalizing field of statistical risk, operating in excess of medical diagnosis, which requires potential parents to manage and avoid deviance itself.

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Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Hall, Melinda hall.melinda@gmail.com
Additional Information:	This is a draft. Please do not cite or circulate.
Keywords:	prenatal testing, disability, genetics, genetic determinism, selection
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism General Issues > Feminist Approaches General Issues > Technology General Issues > Values In Science
Depositing User:	Dr. Melinda Hall
Date Deposited:	29 May 2013 14:41
Last Modified:	29 May 2013 14:41
Item ID:	9793
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism General Issues > Feminist Approaches General Issues > Technology General Issues > Values In Science
Date:	24 May 2013
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9793

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