ABSTRACT
Think of the new genetics as a room. (It’s not a perfect metaphor – there are none – but bear with me a moment.) Now think of all of the critics of the new genetics as having come into that room through various doorways. Some came in through public health: they were working on public health issues and this room caught their attention. Some came in via medical sociology. A huge number came in through the doorway of bioethics, peering down at their beneficence/non-maleficence/ justice/autonomy grid, trying to map this new room on to that scheme. Quite a few came in via feminism. I personally came through a nearby door, midwifery, leaning up against the feminist door but never quite merged. Some came rolling, limping, helping each other through the door of disability. The historians had a door, with eugenics almost blocking the way. And there are more: cultural studies, media studies, psychiatry and psychology, science studies, environmentalism – the list goes on. Each of these are ‘contexts’, ways of placing and understanding the new genetics and the genetic counselling that goes on in that room.
