The development of genetic screening technologies has always polarised opinions, and the history of its stakeholders, advocates and opponents has yet to be explored. This project is divided into two strands, the first of which uses a Mass Observation directive on ‘Genes and Genetic Testing’ to explore public attitudes towards disability, pregnancy, and popular understandings of science in early twenty-first century Britain. The second strand examines the arguments put forward by disabled feminists in the 1980s and 1990s which drew attention to the conflict between disability rights and genetic screening for specific impairments and conditions.
Key research questions include:
- To what extent does women’s ambivalence about genetic screening reveal their complex and nuanced attitude towards abortion?
- How did self-styled ‘ordinary’ people understand and articulate an ethics of genetic screening?
- How prevalent were discourses around ‘designer babies’?
- How did the politicisation of both disability and gender inform the arguments put forward by disabled feminists about the eugenicist implications of genetic screening?
- What types of expertise underpinned these arguments and what do they reveal about the tensions between scientists, medical professionals, and disabled people?
