Genetic counselor attitudes towards fetal sex identification and selective abortion

Thirty-four prenatal genetic counselors (all but one non-M.D.s) in seven American cities were interviewed on attitudes which might plausibly affect counselor-client interchanges. They overwhelmingly endorse both non-directive counseling and the pro-choice ethos which supports a woman's absolute right to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. However, they also overwhelmingly condemn using prenatal diagnosis for sex selection purposes. Therefore, counselors experience continual stress from clients who evoke the conflict inherent between these two stances. Counselors use a variety of coping mechanisms to minimize this cognitive dissonance. Avoidance through out-referral or invoking institutional policies forbidding prenatal diagnosis for sex selection purposes is a diminishing option and not possible with clients who have or offer a medical indication. More common is the use of psychological coping mechanisms. By elevating the ideals of non-directiveness and female autonomy counselors better tolerate client values in conflict with their own. Some redefine the category of 'unwanted pregnancy' to include fetuses of the 'wrong sex'; others redefine the problem as their own ethnocentricism. Empowering counselors to set the protocols they use to screen applicants for prenatal diagnosis would not remove these conflicts. Many counselors believe a ban on releasing fetal sex information while abortion is still a legal option would be organizationally or legally unacceptable, or a violation of patient automony. A complicating factor is that 60% of the couselors interviewed would prefer to know fetal sex in their own pregnancies. Counselors reflect the ambivalence of American society in balancing conflicting social goals. Health professionals will continue to be stressed by sex selection clients until open discussion achieves societal consensus on this use of prenatal diagnosis.