Two bioethicists argue that prenatal disability screening promotes negativity toward the disabled and gives parents the ability to selectively form families.
A philosophy professor argues that prenatal genetic testing allows potentially painful afflictions to be discovered prior to birth and does not unjustly discriminate against disabled people.
Appropriate use of the pay-for-performance system may improve quality of care by counteracting physician incentives to overtreat in fee-for-service situations or undertreat in capitation plans.
To be a useful tool for assessing quality of physician care, pay-for-performance must be designed to include process measures and to not penalize physicians for treating patients with difficult-to-manage conditions.
Dr Noah Boton joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Jeffrey Larnard: “When Should Patients at the End of Life Get Antimicrobials?”
While there are benefits to genetic screening during pregnancy, parents must not let their desire for a genetically perfect child allow them to terminate a pregnancy because of non-medical factors.
Physicians need to take an active role in improving the genetic literacy of the general population and also push for public health policies that make new genetic tools available to everyone.