Introduction - How prenatal diagnosis is entangled in historical and social contexts

When reproductive medicine introduced prenatal testing and when geneticsbegan to transform diagnosis and general prognoses into predictive genetics,genetic responsibility was introduced into bioethics and became the concernof(future)parentsandaffectedpersons.Acountry’sbiopoliticsincludedthesebiomedical practices and became concerned with how states can evaluate andregulate genetic testing, and related questions of risk management. In orderto better understand social and technological changes in the field of prenatalgenetic diagnosis, their implications for the individual and society, and theircultural,philosophicalandethicalmeanings,aresearchprojectwasfundedbythe Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).