{"title":"When is the Promotion of Prenatal Testing for Selective Abortion Wrong?","authors":"Javiera Perez Gomez","doi":"10.1353/ken.2020.0001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Medical professionals routinely offer prenatal genetic testing services to their expecting patients. Some bioethicists believe that when these professionals promote the use of such testing for abortion on grounds of disability, they express a devaluing message to and about extant disabled people. Supporters of this expressivist objection further maintain that, in expressing such a message, medical professionals reinforce negative attitudes about extant disabled people and thereby further stigmatize them. But while the expressivist objection has received quite a bit of support from disability rights theorists-in part because of its intuitive appeal-its current formulation suffers from various shortcomings that render it implausible. By invoking tools from the philosophy of language, I present the expressivist objection*: an improved and distinctive formulation of the expressivist objection that preserves some of its core insights. According to this improved formulation, the promotion of prenatal testing for selective abortion can at least sometimes be wrong.</p>","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/ken.2020.0001","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2020.0001","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Medical professionals routinely offer prenatal genetic testing services to their expecting patients. Some bioethicists believe that when these professionals promote the use of such testing for abortion on grounds of disability, they express a devaluing message to and about extant disabled people. Supporters of this expressivist objection further maintain that, in expressing such a message, medical professionals reinforce negative attitudes about extant disabled people and thereby further stigmatize them. But while the expressivist objection has received quite a bit of support from disability rights theorists-in part because of its intuitive appeal-its current formulation suffers from various shortcomings that render it implausible. By invoking tools from the philosophy of language, I present the expressivist objection*: an improved and distinctive formulation of the expressivist objection that preserves some of its core insights. According to this improved formulation, the promotion of prenatal testing for selective abortion can at least sometimes be wrong.
期刊介绍:
The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal offers a scholarly forum for diverse views on major issues in bioethics, such as analysis and critique of principlism, feminist perspectives in bioethics, the work of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, active euthanasia, genetics, health care reform, and organ transplantation. Each issue includes "Scope Notes," an overview and extensive annotated bibliography on a specific topic in bioethics, and "Bioethics Inside the Beltway," a report written by a Washington insider updating bioethics activities on the federal level.