Course 9

Ethical aspects of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD)

Organised by the Special Interest Group Ethics and Law

Course Coordinators: Guido De Wert (The Netherlands) and Wybo Dondorp (The Netherlands)

Course desciption: AIM: to present an overview of present and possible future developments related to the introduction of NIPD (a non-invasive diagnostic test) in the context of prenatal screening (systematic offer of testing for foetal abnormalities made to all pregnant women) and to contribute to normative (ethical, legal) reflection and guidance.

BACKGROUND: NIPD (in cell-free foetal DNA/RNA from a maternal blood sample) promises to allow safe and easy diagnostic testing in early pregnancy ( from 7 weeks of gestation or even earlier). The feasibility of NIPD for trisomies 21, 13 and 18 has already been shown, making it likely that NIPD will be introduced in the near future as a one-step alternative for current approaches to prenatal screening and testing for common aneuploidies.

PART I (larger part of morning session) will be devoted to these imminent applications of NIPD-based prenatal screening. Presentations will cover the scientific background, possible implications for counseling and decision-making, and ethical aspects.

PART II (end of morning session, afternoon session) will address the implications of further scientific developments, possibly enabling (forms of) genome-wide NIPD-based prenatal screening. There will be presentations on the state of the art, ethical implications and legal/societal/regulatory aspects.
 

Target audience: The target audience consists of congress participants involved in prenatal testing and/or interested in these developments and their ethical, legal and societal implications.

Course type: Basic 

Chairs: Guido De Wert (The Netherlands) and Wybo Dondorp (The Netherlands)

Part I: NIPD-based prenatal screening: imminent possibilities and moral challenges

09:00 – 09:30	Medical/scientific aspects / Lyn Chitty (United Kingdom)
09:30 – 09:45	Discussion
09:45 – 10:15	NIPD-based prenatal screening: psychosocial aspects / Jenny Hewison (United Kingdom)
10:15 – 10:30	Discussion
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee break

11:00 – 11:30	NIPD-based prenatal screening: ethical aspects / Ainsley Newson (United Kingdom)
11:30 - 11:45	Discussion
Part II: NIPD-based prenatal screening: possible future applications and moral/legal challenges
11:45 – 12:15	The Future of NIPD and NIPS / Diana W. Bianchi (USA)
12:15 – 12:30	Discussion
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch

13:30 – 14:00	NIPD and the ethics of non-medical applications / Antina de Jong (The Netherlands)
14:00 – 14:15	Discussion
14:15 – 14:45	Widening the scope of NIPD-based prenatal screening: what to offer and by whom to decide? / Dagmar Schmitz (Germany)
14:45 – 15:00	Discussion
15:00 – 15:30	Coffee break
15:30 – 16:00	Widening the scope of NIPD-based prenatal screening: the ethics of predictive testing of (future) children / Guido de Wert (The Netherlands)
16:00 – 16:15	Discussion
16.15 – 16.45	Regulatory aspects; international normative frameworks and commercial context / Aart Hendriks (The Netherlands)
16:45 – 17:00	Discussion