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 I have always tried to criticise both genetic practices and discourses about genetics and disability (Shakespeare, 1995a, 1998a, 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. Within the disability rights movement, there has been considerable
concern about the scientific and societal enthusiasm for genetic research in contemporary Western societies (Shakespeare, 1995a; Rock, 1996; Saxton, 2000; Asch, 2001, 2003; Goggin and Newell, 2005). Disabled
activists and authors have always been prominent among those opposing developments in human genetics and reproductive medicine. But these critical and cautionary voices of disabled people and their families have not always sufficiently figured within the policy and media debate about the impact of antenatal diagnosis on society. Looking at disability rights objections to antenatal diagnosis and selective termination, there are two linked themes: (1) a powerful narrative about eugenics, common in activist responses; and (2) a more subtle claim about discrimination, coming through disability bioethics. In this and the succeeding section I will discuss these themes, and show why I believe that they cannot entirely be sustained.
