He worries that a few parents might not give consent, thereby potentially endangering the child's health. Some committee members agreed that mandatory screening for PKU and hypothyroidism would be a simpler solution. The committee also discouraged the use of screening to identify newborns who carry genes that might cause disease in subsequent offspring, or to help parents determine their own carrier status. The committee's justification derives from the principle that a person should not be used as a means for the benefit of others. The entire committee urged that members of high-risk populations be offered carrier screening before pregnancy.
Prenatal testing can pose the most difficult issues.
When offered testing, a woman should receive counseling before and after. Relevant medical advice, however, is recommended for treatable or preventable conditions. Decisions about whether to reproduce or to abort an affected fetus are individual choices that should be left to each couple. These personal decisions are not to be outweighed by public health goals to reduce the societal burden of disease. The committee also strongly opposed using prenatal diagnosis and abortion to choose the desired sex of the fetus.