ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a surrounding prenatal screening of fetuses with intent to abort on the basis of disability. It raises some of the difficult social, political, and personal questions that women, especially prospective mothers, face regarding these issues, and suggests new perspectives for the decision-making process regarding abortion. The medical system wishes to fix, to cure, to control, to perfect, reinforcing the ideal and the possibility of the "perfect baby". Physicians exert strong influence over consumers regarding prenatal screening and they often function as the primary counsel to prospective parents. The technologies are heralded by the medical system as a triumph for modern science, a means to control the incidence of disability, and to improve the quality of life for families and society. Because physicians are under pressure to encourage prenatal screening and even abortion out of fear of malpractice suits, they may lobby for enforced screening and certainly encourage more screening.
