ABSTRACT
This chapter explores disability rights arguments about prenatal diagnosis (PND), challenging the basis on which objections have been expressed by activists and academics. However, I should state at the outset that my reluctance to accept certain arguments from disability rights critics of prenatal diagnosis does not entail support for prenatal diagnosis as it is currently practised. Nor do my arguments in this chapter imply acceptance of the positions of bioethicists such as John Harris (1985, 1992) or Peter Singer (1993). These utilitarian philosophers have argued strongly for screening, and even challenged opposition to infanticide in certain situations (Kuhse and Singer, 1985; Singer, 1993). Elsewhere, my colleague Simo Vehmas (2003a, 2003b, 2004) has developed a strong and well-argued philosophical critique of the assumptions and arguments about disability in this mainstream bioethical literature. While elsewhere I have tried to criticise both genetic practices and discourses about genetics and disability (Shakespeare 1995a, 1998, 1999a, 2005a), in this chapter I continue the revisionist work established earlier in this volume by critically analysing the basis of the disability rights critique.
