Table 2

Costs and benefits of antenatal diagnosis typically noted by the medical profession
Costs	Benefits

For hospital and health authorities
1) Costs in connection with diagnosis,	1) Scarce resources allocated to
2) Costs involved in performing termination.	children with good prognosis (rather
3) Costs in connection with counseling services.	than to severely handicapped
	children).
For pregnant women and fathers-to-be
Availability of prenatal diagnosis
	1) Increase in the number of healthy
	children born to parents at risk who,
	had prenatal diagnosis not been
	available, would have avoided
	becoming pregnant.
Diagnostic procedures
1) Risk of fetal loss or injury,
2) Maternal hazards,
3) Maternal anxiety.
Result:
true negative
	2) Reassurance,
	3) An increase in the number of
	healthy children born to parents at
	risk who, had the test result not been
	negative, would have terminated
	pregnancy on grounds of risk.
false negative
4) False reassurance.
false positive
5) Abortion of healthy fetus,
6) Grief and adverse psychological
consequences of termination of non-affected
pregnancy.
true positive
-followed by abortion-
7) Grief and adverse psychological	4) Averted parental distress and
consequences of termination of affected	burden of care for disabled child,
pregnancy.	5) Additional non-disabled children.
-not followed by abortion-
	6) Time to prepare for the birth of the
	disabled child.

Aksoy BMC Medical Ethics 2001 2:3 doi:10.1186/1472-6939-2-3