Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
medical professionals in their everyday work. Such was the case when Åsa
explained that for some women and men, who may have gone through PND
(prenatal diagnosis) and abortion or miscarried several times, PGD was a
'last straw to clutch at' and she concluded that 'it always feels good to have
been able to offer something more [to these couples]'. Such was also the case
when Andrew explained that the possibility of PGD made his everyday work
'easier' even if it did not always result in the birth of a healthy child.
Let us take a closer look at Andrew's narrative of progress. It started with
an orientation, where the pre-PGD situation was described as 'frustrating'
and as offering little possibility of acting. There was little or nothing 'to
offer'. In his words:
I would meet somebody with translocation who had recurrent
miscarriages. In the cases of translocations, it used to be, it would be
very frustrating. I would see somebody with recurrent miscarriages who
had a translocation or a husband with a translocation. You couldn't do
anything other than roll the dice each time. Maybe you'd get lucky.
Whereas now you can actually offer something concrete.
The metaphor 'roll the dice' is noteworthy. The rolling of the dice, used
by the Romans in order to fi nd out what destiny, fate or chance had in store,
was used as a means to describe the conditions of hazard that couples had
to live under - conditions that doctors could not change. Before PGD and
particularly before prenatal diagnosis and molecular diagnosis, rolling the
dice was a necessity because of the absence of alternatives: couples who
knew that they were at risk for a particular disease had to choose between
not becoming parents and accepting that the child born might have a serious
disease (or, when adoption was available, adopting). This was no longer the
case - rolling the dice was no longer necessary - though PGD was still no
certain way to children without a particular genetic disease.
Andrew's narrative continued with him explaining that before he started
to work at the PGD clinic, he had not refl ected on the situations of some of
the couples that he now met every day. Meeting them was an 'eye-opener'.
They were always in genetics, but it hadn't crossed my mind that they
existed, to be honest. It was a real eye-opener to see them. I think it
must have been really diffi cult to have been a geneticist before PGD was
available, to see couples with these awful conditions and not be able to
offer anything at all. At least for some of them, now there's something to
offer. It doesn't always help but at least there's something else for them,
if they want it.
The introduction of PGD is the peak and the turning-point of this
narrative, present in the narrative's complication. Before PGD was available,
there was nothing to offer and this lack of options, Andrew stated, must have
