From a pro-choice perspective, the unreflective uses of prenatal testing could diminish, rather, than expand, women's reproductive choices. Similarly, concern for genuine "informed consent" argues that predictive testing for multigenic adult-onset impairments may substitute technological for social solutions to human problems. This critique challenges the view of disability that lies behind the social endorsement of such testing; it challenges the conviction that women will or should end their pregnancies if they discover that the fetus has a disabling trait; and it questions the claim that knowledge of predisposition to adult-onset impairments will aid individuals, families, and society to deal justly and appropriately with people who develop these conditions. Professionals should reexamine negative assumptions about the quality of life of people with impairments and should work to eradicate the social barriers to full participation in communal life that serve to reduce life quality when it is sub-optimal. For similar reasons, professionals should work to end not only "genetic" discrimination, but all discrimination based on disability, regardless of etiology or onset.
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