Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Joyce was concerned about the way PGD was presented and described and she
held that women and men did not necessarily get accurate information - they were
sold the good news stories - and there were other stories as well, which needed
to be told. 'It affects me,' she said, because she wondered whether doctors 'had
explained to them the other option' of prenatal diagnosis and an early termination
of pregnancy, and 'whether both options were spelled out to them in an equal way'.
Joyce also explained that she was 'not anti-PGD', but that she felt that 'there's
quite a lot of zealots around who are so pro it, that they sometimes minimize the
down-side of it and ignore other options'.
The reason for caution was lack of information and biased information and this
lack or bias also resulted in concern as well as ambivalence on behalf of Joyce of
how to evaluate PGD. On the one hand, PGD could be positive for some. On the
other hand, PGD had been sold as a good news story, to an extent that was not
correct.
Other interviewees commented on the structures in which PGD was offered as
well as on how they as medical professionals discussed PGD with couples. In these
narratives of concern, interviewees described actual, complicating circumstances
that rendered the clinical encounter diffi cult. This was the case when Andrew told
the stories of some couples that he met in clinic. In his words:
I've become more and more worried that, if a couple want treatment,
we feel obliged to offer it to them [and it is] not always in their best
interest, but simply because they want it and we can do it. Then, we are
almost supporting them, pushing them towards it. Of course, they're
going to be, if they want something they're going to be very vocal about
it, because they have to have been quite vocal and persistent to have got
as far as us. So they're never going to say to the doctor 'I think I want
to have this'. You know, they might not turn up for treatment, but they
are going to have to say 'We really want this, we must have this now',
and so then we end up saying 'Yes, you must have it now'. Before you
know it, we've done the treatment. We'll, we never stepped back to say,
you know, 'Just because they wanted it, was it the right thing to do for
that individual?'
In this excerpt, Andrew described himself as contributing to the pressure
on couples concerned: he pushed them.
8
The excerpt also contained the idea
of a vicious circle, where one part pushed the other and vice versa. Medical
professionals pushed couples, couples needed to be persistent, the more
persistent they sounded, the more professionals felt that couples should
use the technology and be offered it etc. Andrew expressed concern about
the consequences of this vicious circle. Little space was left to encourage
refl ections, articulations of doubts and hesitance. If present, he continued,
such refl ections were seldom articulated but shown through possible absences
during treatment - couples did not show up later, when expected. This was
undesirable and it worried him.
