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Negotiating Responsibility: Case Studies of Reproductive Decision‐Making and Prenatal Genetic Testing in Families Facing Huntington Disease
Author(s) -
Downing Claudia
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of genetic counseling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1573-3599
pISSN - 1059-7700
DOI - 10.1007/s10897-005-0619-3
Subject(s) - genetic counseling , genetic testing , negotiation , disease , human genetics , psychology , social psychology , medicine , genetics , political science , biology , law , pathology , gene
Three case studies are presented to further our understanding of how responsibility is negotiated in families when making decisions about genetic risk. These draw on a model of responsibility generated in a study of reproductive decision‐making in families facing Huntington disease (HD) to illustrate the impact of prenatal testing on this process. This involves analyzing: how people present themselves as acting responsibly whether or not they utilize genetic testing; who they feel responsible to in their family and elsewhere; the impact that testing has on these relationships; and, how negotiating responsibility changes over time with repeated use of prenatal testing, changing risk status and maturational changes. Two key findings are: how decision‐making is perceived can become as important as what is decided; and, how responsibility is negotiated depends on which of these relationships are prioritized. Implications of the findings for clinical practice are noted and suggestions made for further applications of the model.

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