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Advances in prenatal screening: the ethical dimension

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 12, pages 657–663 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Prenatal screening strategies are undergoing rapid changes owing to the introduction of new testing techniques. The overall tendency is towards broadening the scope of prenatal testing through increasingly sensitive ultrasound scans and genome-wide molecular tests. In addition, non-invasive prenatal diagnosis is likely to be introduced in the near future. These developments raise important ethical questions concerning meaningful reproductive choice, the autonomy rights of future children, equity of access and the proportionality of testing.

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Figure 1: Prenatal screening cascade: current and possible future test routes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Macville for his valuable comments on this paper. This research was supported by the Centre for Society and Genomics, funded by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (project number: 70.1.061b) and the Dutch Research Prevention Fund project, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) (project number: 200320009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wybo J. Dondorp and Guido M. W. R. de Wert are at the Department of Health, Antina de Jong, Ethics and Society, Maastricht University, PO BOX 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands.,

    Antina de Jong, Wybo J. Dondorp & Guido M. W. R. de Wert

  2. Antina de Jong, Wybo J. Dondorp, Suzanna G. M. Frints, Christine E. M. de Die-Smulders and Guido M. W. R. de Wert are at GROW, School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Nijmegen, PO BOX 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands.,

    Antina de Jong, Wybo J. Dondorp, Suzanna G. M. Frints, Christine E. M. de Die-Smulders & Guido M. W. R. de Wert

  3. Wybo J. Dondorp and Guido M. W. R. de Wert are at CAPHRI, School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, PO BOX 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands.,

    Wybo J. Dondorp & Guido M. W. R. de Wert

  4. Suzanna G. M. Frints and Christine E. M. de Die-Smulders are at the Department of Clinical Genetics, Maastricht University Medical Center (azM), PO BOX 5800, 6202 MZ Maastricht, The Netherlands.,

    Suzanna G. M. Frints & Christine E. M. de Die-Smulders

  5. Antina de Jong and Guido M. W. R. de Wert are at the Centre for Society and Genomics, PO BOX 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands.,

    Antina de Jong & Guido M. W. R. de Wert

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  1. Antina de Jong
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Correspondence to Antina de Jong.

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de Jong, A., Dondorp, W., Frints, S. et al. Advances in prenatal screening: the ethical dimension. Nat Rev Genet 12, 657–663 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3036

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