ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and compares policies, laws and public debates related to prenatal screening in Finland, England, Greece and The Netherlands. It outlines the regulatory framework, the debates, the actors and events that are involved in the shaping of prenatal screening technologies. The health care system in Greece is delivered both in the public and private sector. The roles of both sectors are parallel and complimentary. Public discussion and interest in genetic diseases started in the early 1960s with regard to thalassemia, a genetically transmitted anemia that has a prevalence of the affected gene of 8%. The population initially avoided screening. The implementation of prenatal tests and screening in Greece is based on the successful thalassemia program. In Finland, the technology of prenatal screening has proliferated through municipal maternity care centres that are attended by 99% of pregnant women. The use of gene tests for prenatal diagnosis has brought up many new ethical, social and political issues around prenatal screening.
