Law & Ethics of Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing

Date: 

Thursday, November 6, 2014, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Room 3018, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA

The Petrie-Flom Center will host a discussion of the issues surrounding noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), a screening method for detecting certain specific chromosomal abnormalities, as well as sex, in utero.  NIPT may help mothers avoid other tests that could put their pregnancies at risk, but the ability to detect substantial information about a developing fetus with such ease raises a wide range of important ethical and legal issues.  Our discussion will cover background on the technology, what makes NIPT unique, issues with global dissemination, eugenic implications, and informed consent issues.

Panelists include:

  • Vardit Ravitsky, Associate Professor in the Bioethics Programs at the School of Public Health, University of Montreal and Director of the Ethics and Health axis of the Centre de recherche en éthique de l'Université de Montréal
  • Subhashini (Shubha) Chandrasekharan, Assistant Research Professor, Duke Global Health Institute
  • Diane Paul, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts Boston and Research Associate, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
  • Moderated by: Holly Lynch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School.

This event is supported by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund.

pfc_poster-prenatal_testing.pdf1.89 MB