Women's voices: prenatal diagnosis and care for the disabled

The development and implementation of prenatal diagnosis has changed the experience of pregnancy for many women. How women make decisions about prenatal diagnosis PD is an important question that challenges us both individually and as a community. The question of care is central to many women's decision-making process. How much care a child will require, how much care a woman feels confident to provide, and the level of care available for children with genetic conditions and families from their communities all impact on women's decisions to undertake prenatal diagnosis as well as how to use the information available from testing. Interviews with women making these decisions explored, among other things, the role that caring and access to care played in women's ethical deliberations. Before PD can widen women's reproductive choices and counter criticisms that its use is eugenically oriented, the central role that provision of, and access to, care holds for participants in PD programmes must be acknowledged and addressed.