ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a wider project aiming at understanding what serum screening and prenatal diagnosis mean more broadly to women around which the volume at hand is built. The questions posed concerned women's awareness of the test, their level of knowledge concerning prenatal diagnosis and genetic disease, their familiarity with certain terms and their sources of information. Genetic defect in their discourse is presented as a result of human agency and intervention and an effect of the intermediaries' role both in cause and prevention. Women's theories about genetic diseases are widely shared social representations of agency affecting a pregnancy’s outcome and especially of maternal responsibility for genetic or chromosomal normality, notes R. Rapp. The chapter describes a feature that was particularly prominent when analysing their representations about genetic disease, which is women's sense of responsibility and accountability for potential genetic morbidity and hence, the experience of shame and guilt.
