[Ethics problems in prenatal medicine from the pediatrician's viewpoint].
Prenatal diagnosis is an integrative part of modern reproductive medicine and helps to ensure its high standards. Parents and medical staff are often confronted with difficult ethical decisions involving the different interests of mother and child and lacking generally binding rules. The paper discusses the indications of prenatal diagnosis: which procedures are mandatory and which ones should only be performed if necessary, when are the procedures and their consequences ethically justified and how should the parents be supported in their decisions. For indicated induced abortion, the rights and interests of the child, mother, family and society have to be balanced. In such decisions the weight upon the various arguments are differently distributed depending on whether the child is already viable or not. The double role of the pediatrician in counselling the parents and defending the rights of the unborn asks for carefully applying knowledge, experience, sensitivity and cogitation.
Popow
Ch
Ch
Universitätsklinik für Kinder- und Jugendheilkunde, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, A-1090 Wien. popow@akh-wien.ac.at
D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000941:ethics; D001317:Austria; D026690:Ethics, Clinical; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000941:ethics*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis / Q000941:ethics*