JAMA Article Tackles Ethical Concerns About Non-Invasive Prenatal Screening

I was very happy to see that the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article highlighting the myriad of ethical concerns raised by the specter of noninvasive prenatal screening for Down syndrome. (Unfortunately, you need to be a subscriber of JAMA to see the full article).

While the Sequenom scandal raised a number of alarms, the article takes a much broader look at the existing problems with prenatal screening and how the advent of non-invasive diagnosis of Down syndrome during pregnancy will magnify those problems. The authors, Peter A. Benn, PhD and Audrey R. Chapman, PhD do a great job outlining the problems and presenting suggestions for regulations.

While I think that is is great that JAMA is looking at this issue, and this journal reaches thousands of physicians around the country, I would love to get the word out to the general public as well.

Do you think that the general public has any idea about the ethical issues involved in non-invasive prenatal testing? How do you think that people will feel about this type of testing?