Ethical considerations in prenatal diagnosis.

Prenatal diagnostic testing raises a number of important ethical issues, some related to diagnostic testing in general and others related to the special circumstances of pregnancy. These issues are most effectively addressed in the context of a broader understanding of the goals of prenatal diagnosis. Our dual obligations--to the pregnant woman and to the fetus--have an important influence on the goals of testing.

Prenatal diagnosis of inherited metabolic diseases.

Advances in the prenatal diagnosis of inherited metabolic disease have provided new reproductive options to at-risk couples. These advances have occurred in both sampling techniques and methods of analysis. In this review we present an overview of the currently available prenatal diagnostic approaches for the diagnosis of metabolic disease in a fetus.

Preimplantation diagnosis.

Preimplantation embryonic biopsy and analysis offer couples at increased risk of having offspring affected with a genetic disorder the possibility of an early prenatal diagnosis. For many couples, this approach would avoid the issue of the selective termination of affected fetuses. Substantial advances have been made in the area of preimplantation diagnosis, but the possible difficulties with this approach cannot be ignored.