The Call to Witness in Prenatal Genetic Counseling
​Christopher Ostertag PhD(c), Theology and Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University.  

Prenatal screening and testing have become nearly synonymous with prenatal care. However, there remains a correlation between prenatal diagnosis and abortion, suggesting a troubling connection between prenatal genetic counseling and disability discrimination. In this paper, I explicate some of the debates about the history and ethos of genetic counseling. Next, I contrast the recent position statement on disability by the National Society of Genetic Counselors with some qualitative literature on the actual practice of genetic counseling and a striking address made by Charles Epstein in 2003. After painting a rather troubling picture about the practice of prenatal genetic counseling today, I turn to recent work by Dan Sulmasy and H. Tristram Engelhardt on Christian witness to begin sketching ways that prenatal genetic counseling services, as well as individuals in this field, can be distinctively Christian amidst the
values and forces at work in genetic counseling.