Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights

As prenatal tests proliferate, the medical and broader communities perceive that such testing is a logical extension of good prenatal care--it helps parents have healthy babies. But prenatal tests have been criticized by the disability rights community. Used primarily to decide to abort a fetus that would have been born with mental or physical impairments, prenatal tests arguably reinforce discrimination against and misconceptions about people with disabilities. In these essays, health care professionals, scholars, and members of the disability community debate the implications of prenatal testing for people with disabilities and for parent-child relationships generally.

Erik Parens is the associate for philosophical studies at The Hastings Center, Garrison, New York.

Adrienne Asch is the Henry L. Luce Professor of Biology, Ethics and Human Reproduction at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts.