Rethinking the Burden of Traditional Informed Consent Prior to Prenatal Genetic Screening.

ABSTRACT: The ethics literature and professional guidelines call for extensive discussions prior to prescreening consent to prenatal cell-free DNA screening to, theoretically, allow patients to make decisions that match their values and goals of care. Most patients, however, actively avoid in-depth moral deliberation when consenting to prenatal screening and then receive a screen-negative result, suggesting that an information-heavy process is irrelevant for average-risk pregnancies. In addition, extensive information-based consent procedures are not feasible in many resource-limited contexts. Meanwhile, patients and families with screen-positive results frequently report minimal support following screening, resulting in long-term distress and suboptimal outcomes. We argue for a fundamental shift to

SUBMITTER: Allyse M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12279024 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature