ABSTRACT
Neonatal-perinatal medicine researchers report that NICU parents want to hear messages of hope, and in turn that health professionals have certain ethical responsibilities to support expectant parents in their hopes. It is not unusual, and often routine, in some centers that families are given termination dates at the same time as the test results. Perhaps the people use the language of 'terminating or ending a pregnancy' precisely because what tests give is a particular perception of a child that replaces or diminishes what was ambiguous yet nonetheless present of the child that the people struggle to name, feel, or otherwise contact in closeness. Regardless of the medical technology employed, the people need to realize that the medical information itself gained from technologies and how they communicate it to parents may dramatically affect the natality of pregnancy—the expectant, hopeful living with possibilities for a child to have his or her own meaningful life.
