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Imagine
being
pregnant
and
taking a
simple
blood
test
that
lays
bare the
DNA of
your
fetus.
And
suppose
that DNA
could
reveal
not only
medical
conditions
like
Down
syndrome,
but also
things
like eye
color
and
height.
And the
risk for
developing
depression
or
Alzheimer's
disease.
Scanning
fetal
DNA from
a blood
test
will
be
"without
question
a major
medical
advance
that
promises
to
greatly
improve
current
prenatal
care,"
says
Jaime
King, an
associate
professor
at the
UC
Hastings
College
of Law
in San
Francisco
who
studies
genetic
testing.
But
bringing
it into
practice
"raises
significant
practical,
legal,
ethical
and
social
challenges,"
she
says.
"This
really
changes
the
experience
of what
it will
be like
to be
pregnant
and have
a
child,"
said
Marcy
Darnovsky
of the
Center
for
Genetics
and
Society
in
Berkeley,
Calif.
"I keep
coming
up with
the
word,
game-changer."
She
wonders
if
parents
would
withhold
their
commitment
to a
pregnancy
until
test
results
show a
fetus is
"good
enough"
to be
born.
And
what,
she
asks, is
good
enough?
The
issues
have
been
discussed
before.
The DNA
of a
fetus
has long
been
recoverable
through
medical
procedures,
with a
small
risk of
miscarriage.
But a
blood
test
would be
free of
that
risk,
which
should
make
many
more
women
interested
in it
and
doctors
willing
to test
for a
wider
range of
conditions,
some
experts
say.
And the
results
could
come
early
enough
to allow
for an
abortion
before
the
pregnancy
is even
obvious.
The
trigger
for the
new
round of
discussion
is a
couple
of
papers
published
last
December.
In
preliminary
results,
two
research
teams
showed
that
they
could
essentially
reconstruct
a baby's
genetic
makeup
by
recovering
fragments
of fetal
DNA from
the
mother's
bloodstream.
That
ability,
plus the
rapidly
falling
cost of
analyzing
DNA,
would
open the
door to
inspecting
individual
genes.
"If no
limitations
are put
on, you
can have
a couple
get a
prenatal
genetic
test in
the
future
saying
their
fetus
has ...
a 60
percent
chance
of
having
breast
cancer
at the
age of
60 and a
30
percent
chance
of being
gay,"
says
Dr.
Brian
Skotko,
a board
member
of the
National
Down
Syndrome
Society.
Since
such
information
would
come
early
enough
for an
abortion,
Skotko
says,
"The
ultimate
question
for
society
is, What
forms of
human
variation
are
valuable?"
On a
societal
level,
King
said
she's
concerned
that the
prenatal
diagnosis
might
become
seen as
a way of
"curing"
diseases
by
aborting
fetuses
that
have
them.
"Once
you've
opened
Pandora's
box,
it's
harder
to close
it."
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