ABSTRACT
Asking what user experiences of non-invasive prenatal testing reveal about understandings of ‘the fetal patient’, this chapter shows how (within the data gathered here): reference to the ‘fetus’ was common within expert accounts of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and rare within patient/parent accounts, understandings/representations of the fetus were multiple and diverse, and the maternal (not fetal) patient appeared as central. Since maternal patienthood appeared to be understood relationally however, the interests of ‘fetal patient’ were not displaced entirely; rather, both the clear and tangible interests of the maternal patient, and the (possible) interests of the fetus, could each be examined and discussed.
