Public Attitudes on Reproductive Technologies

The ‘Public’ in Public Understanding of Science is not singular but plural. The Public with a capital ‘P’ encompasses within it several publics with a lowercase ‘p’, each guided by its own perceptions, contexts, and worldviews. This week, our guest blogger is Rebecca Bollard, a doctoral candidate at the University of Waikato, whose PhD thesis is titled, Using Sustainable Citizenship to Form a Deliberative Policy Framework: An Analysis of Reproductive Technology in New Zealand. In this blog, Rebecca looks at recent research on public attitudes towards new and emerging reproductive technologies. Here is her post:

Reproductive technologies have often been cast as a sort of technological Pandora’s Box, containing both great promise for ameliorating suffering and the potential for radical and undesirable change to the process of reproduction. The recent development of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) fits squarely into this mold. NIPD offers the promise of a future where parents can have fetuses tested for chromosomal abnormalities (such as Down’s syndrome) without the risk associated with amniocentesis. However the subsequent abortion of such fetuses or the use of NIPD for more ‘superficial’ reasons creates concerns for some.

NIPD raises many of the same bioethical issues that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PIGD) does. PIGD is a technique used in conjunction with IVF that can test embryos for specific diseases or conditions before they are implanted into a womb. It is often used to prevent a genetic disease, but can also be used for more ‘social’ reasons including sex selection.

In an article forthcoming in Public Understanding of Science, Hannah Farrimond and Susan Kelly provide one of the first attempts to understand and quantify public reaction to the use of NIPD. Their UK study employs Q methodology to identify four distinct viewpoints:

1. NIPD as a new tool in the ongoing societal discrimination against the disabled;
2. NIPD as a positive clinical application offering peace of mind in pregnancy;
3. NIPD as a medical option justified for severe disorders only; and
4. NIPD as a valid expansion of personal choice (Farrimond & Kelly, 2011).

So how do their findings compare to earlier studies on PIGD? Gerhard Meisenberg, in a 2009 article, used surveys to study attitudes towards PIGD among medical students in Dominica (mostly US citizens). He found these attitudes varied across a number of variables, including gender, religion, and perception of nature. Religiosity, post-modern values and low familiarity are all more likely to produce negative attitudes towards PIGD. The use of the technology was also important in how the students perceived its value, with medical uses (prevention of disease) being more acceptable than non-medic al uses (physical or psychological enhancement).

In another study, Doolin and Motion used focus groups in New Zealand to understand Christian lay perspectives on the use of PIGD. Their study revealed the difficultly of integrating science into value systems. Participants were generally ambivalent about the potential benefits but they were aware of the potential of science to relive suffering and of the need for balance and choice. A range of factors, including “emotion, religious and secular values and beliefs, and non-institutional knowledges”, were identified as contributing to these beliefs.

While each of these studies looks at attitudes towards the use of NIPD and PIGD, each employs a different methodology to study different groups in different countries. However the results show a similar variation in results; there is not one ‘public’ opinion, but rather a range of opinions between people and across the use of technology.

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So, there is clearly no dearth of evidence that there are multiple publics amongst us (scientists and non-scientists), with a diversity of values and beliefs. But does this evidence make a difference – to public policy? To politics? To institutional rules and practices? We take this question up in future blogs.