Motivation for the TARGeT project

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Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash

We're currently in the process of getting our project set up, and in coming months will continue to introduce you to our growing team and our work.

In the meantime, we thought we'd say a little about why we developed the TARGeT project. The kernel of the idea came about when our lead Investigator (Prof Ainsley Newson, University of Sydney - we introduce her here) started to look for a common thread in a few things:

  • The tendency, particularly in clinical literature, to use 'autonomy' as a means of defending the expanding scope of prenatal testing. 
  • A relative gap in the literature regarding constraints on reproductive autonomy, especially when compared to the (big) literature considering what the limits of reproductive autonomy should be (as in: how far people could or should push things). 
  • A focus in the literature on autonomy as being decision-specific, and being facilitated by information - without recognising aspects such as the social context in which a decision is made and the laissez faire introduction and marketing of new reproductive tests. 
These various thoughts led her to bring our team together and to develop our project. While we are in favour of prenatal testing and the right to choose in reproduction, we are also concerned to ensure genomic tests are introduced and used wisely. So, we will be taking an in-depth and critical look at how new genomic tests are introduced in reproduction and what can and should be done to ensure people are facilitated and - crucially - supported to make the right decision for them and as such to make a truly autonomous decision. 

We are, of course, not the only people who have raised concerns like these. There's an excellent, if nascent, literature. And in popular media, Marleen Susman has recently published this op-ed with ABC Religion and Ethics. Internationally, and about autonomy more generally, Craig Klugman captured the problem (as we see it) brilliantly on the AJOB blog. 

Let us know if you have any suggestions of scholars to follow or literature to get across!

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