Abstract
Women undergoing prenatal diagnosis (n = 198) with amniocentesis or chorionic villous biopsy participated in a study of attitudes to information about the sex of the fetus. The women completed two questionnaires on different occasions and about one fourth of them were also interviewed. Furthermore, 20 of the women's consorts were interviewed. The possibility of obtaining information about the sex of the fetus was reported as unimportant for most of the women (78%). Nevertheless, 58% of them wanted to have the information. In the questionnaires, most of the women (84%) rejected the idea of having a legal abortion because of the fetus's sex. In a discussion during the interview, only 33% of the men and women dismissed the probability that in some situations, parents-to-be might wish to choose the sex of their child and to do so by means of prenatal diagnosis. At the same time, 57% of the participants deprecated this use of the diagnostic technique. Thus the participants’ answers were contradictory, indicating split attitudes to this problem. The results suggest that it is possible that people may wish to use PND to select the sex of their child. At the same time the way of answering indicates that there is a moral dilemma.
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