Testing Times Ahead: Non‐Invasive Prenatal Testing and the Kind of Community We Want to Be

Abstract

This article reviews the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ report on Non‐Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT); and introduces two general questions provoked by the report – concerning, respectively, the nature and extent of the informational interests that are to be recognised in today's ‘information societies’ and the membership of today's ‘genetic societies’. The article also considers the role and nature of the Nuffield Council. While the Council's report identifies a range of individual and collective interests that are relevant to determining the legitimate uses of NIPT, we argue that it should put these interests into an order of importance; we sketch how this might be done; and we suggest that, failing such a prioritisation of interests, the Council should present its reflections in a way that engages public debate around a number of options rather than making firm recommendations.

Keywords: Non‐Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), autonomy, choice and consent, harm avoidance, equality, fairness and inclusivity, information societies, genomic societies, Nuffield Council on Bioethics