|
" Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis and testing : "
Strange, Heather
| Document Type
|
:
|
Latin Dissertation
|
| Record Number
|
:
|
1101234
|
| Doc. No
|
:
|
TLets685488
|
| Main Entry
|
:
|
Strange, Heather
|
| Title & Author
|
:
|
Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis and testing :\ Strange, Heather
|
| College
|
:
|
Cardiff University
|
| Date
|
:
|
2015
|
| student score
|
:
|
2015
|
| Degree
|
:
|
Ph.D.
|
| Abstract
|
:
|
This thesis presents findings from a qualitative study of the emergence and early clinical translation of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) in the UK. Drawing from interviews with a range of experts and users I track the enrolment and translation of this new prenatal testing technology across a variety of clinical and social spaces. I show how encounters with NIPD prompt deep critical examination of the moral, social and political implications - not only of the technology - but of the established clinical practices (routine and specialised prenatal testing) and specific policy contexts (prenatal screening programmes) within which NIPD has begun to sediment. I explore how, as NIPD advances at a rapid pace and emerges within a culturally and politically complex context, the technology both aligns with and disrupts routine practices of prenatal screening and diagnosis. I show how, as the technology divides into two major strands - NIPD and NIPT - at an early stage of development, and before becoming naturalised/normalised within the clinic, scientists, clinicians and policy makers attempt to pin down, define and ‘fix’ the technology, drawing upon and engaging in substantive practices of division, categorisation and classification. I explore ambiguities present within such accounts, highlighting dissenting voices and moments of problematisation, and following this, I show how the ‘troubling’ of boundaries prompts much examination of ethical and social concerns. As a location within which interviewees explored more contentious issues, I show how abortion emerged as central to the discussion of NIPD. I proceed to show how institutionalised, professionalised bioethical debate dominates mainstream discourse, and I explain how a particular construction of the informed, individual choice-maker is mobilised in order to locate moral and political responsibility for testing in the hands of individuals, and to distance political/organisational structures from entanglement with problematic concerns. I explore how clinicians and patients respond to this positioning in multiple ways, both assimilating and questioning the mainstream discourse of ‘informed choice’. In conclusion, I highlight the broader (bio)political aspects of NIPD’s emergence and translation within prenatal screening and diagnosis.
|
| Subject
|
:
|
H Social Sciences (General)
|
|
|
:
|
RG Gynecology and obstetrics
|
| Added Entry
|
:
|
Cardiff University
|
| |