Pre-natal Genetic Testing

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etermine if an embryo will be affected by a certain genetic abnormality prior to its transfer and implantation in the uterus. This procedure is recommended for women over 35 years of age and for couples who are at risk for passing a genetic or sex-linked genetic disease to their offspring. However, the problem with this testing is that it can come back with false-positive readings meaning it reads that your fetus has an abnormality when in reality it doesn’t. In this case, the fetus could then be aborted when nothing was wrong, but the test had a false reading. Also, some might alter their reproductive plans (including the abortion of a healthy fetus) because they are confused about the impression of risk created by testing results (B. Wilfond and N. Fost).
On the other hand, pre-implantation genetic testing is the use of the male’s sperm and the female’s egg through invitro fertilization to come up with some possible embryos, which can be used to detect disease. The healthy embryos can ...