ABSTRACT
Various forms of genetic testing – carrier testing, prenatal genetic diagnosis (PND) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) – are increasingly linked to reproduction thus raising a host of ethical, legal and social issues. This book focuses on carrier testing and screening of adults, which provide information about the risk of passing a genetic mutation to your children. Such information can provide reassurance to prospective parents, or the basis for important reproductive decisions: to be matched to a certain individual (in ultra-orthodox communities); to attempt a pregnancy, or not; to attempt PGD; to attempt PND and continue a pregnancy, or not. Some warn that excessive carrier screening can have adverse effects, while others support it as an opportunity to reduce suffering. Eugenics, viewed as dystopian and authoritarian in most of the twentieth century, is therefore in the process of being reinterpreted today, in the context of reproductive genetics, as utopian and liberal.
