Conscientious objection and non-invasive prenatal testing
Chanelle Warton1, Monash Bioethics Centre, Monash University 1Monash Bioethics Centre, Monash University
Abstract
In 2002, a Polish woman gave birth to a child with Turner Syndrome. Almost a decade later, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the woman’s rights had been violated by virtue of her healthcare professionals’ repeated refusals to provide prenatal genetic testing knowing it would have informed her abortion decisions. Such refusals by healthcare professionals to providing legal health services on the basis of their personal moral or religious beliefs is known as conscientious objection. Though the right to conscientiously object to non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is yet to be explicitly legislated, existing global legislation that permits other objections in healthcare may be reasonably interpreted to accommodate lawful omissions of information produced via NIPT and/or objections to involvement in NIPT provision. Coupled with the increasing integration of NIPT into public healthcare systems globally and the ethical complexities arising from expansions in test scope, these legislative allowances dictate a need to consider whether conscientious objection to NIPT should be accommodated. Drawing on a moderate approach to permitting conscientious objection, I evaluate two key motivations for objections to NIPT. Firstly, conscientious objectors to abortion may hold corresponding objections to providing NIPT given that prenatal genetic testing may be used to inform decisions around abortion. Secondly, proponents of the expressivist objection may refuse to provide NIPT given the negative implications it may have for people with disabilities. I ultimately conclude that both rationales are insufficient to justify the accommodation of conscientious objection to NIPT under a moderate approach.
Biography
Chanelle Warton is a doctoral candidate at Monash Bioethics Centre, Monash University. Her doctoral research examines the role of healthcare professionals in supporting the reproductive autonomy of pregnant people during non-invasive prenatal testing. She is currently employed as a Research Assistant at the Burnet Institute. Twitter @chanellewarton