More States See Legislation That Conditions Abortion Rights on the Genetic Status of the Fetus

The ongoing legal battles over the scope of reproductive rights protected by the 14th Amendment  – with claims of constitutionally protected values of liberty and privacy invoked – continue, going back to the signature case of Roe v. Wade in 1973 and furthered tailored by Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), among other cases. Other arguments for the protection of reproductive autonomy are grounded in gender equality. Fast forwarding to the rapidly developing technological landscape of genetic testing, reproductive medicine has steadily refined the options available for prenatal testing to provide prospective parents with ever more accurate – and earlier obtained – medical information. The most dramatic development has been the availability of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) that relies on obtaining fetal DNA (cell-free detal DNA, cffDNA) from maternal blood as early as 4 weeks into gestation and to test for a number of genetic/chromosomal disorders, including Down syndrome (attributed to the presence of an extra chromosome 21, leading to a trisomy). NIPD has reduced the need for invasive procedures, such as chorionic villi sampling and/or amniocentesis. As prenatal testing becomes more sophisticated, an ongoing political battle rages over whether abortion rights should be restricted based on the intent or rationale of the mother for seeking the procedure. This has led to both state and federal efforts to restrict abortion when it is sought on the basis of gender, race or genetic anomaly (e.g., Down syndrome). Currently, a bill, HB 135, is pending in Ohio that would ban any abortion that is sought sought because prenatal testing reveals Down syndrome. North Dakota enacted a similar bill in 2013 (that same bill would have prohibited abortions about as early as 6 weeks; that portion was struck down by the Eighth Circuit in July of this year). To date, there are no reports of enforcement of these selective bans on abortion. Yet they raise not only the most obvious legal issue of whether such laws impinge on the constitutional right enshrined by Roe (or present the “undue burden” prohibited in Casey). They raise a novel issue of whether the legal rights accorded to the mother can vary according to genetic status of a fetus. Beyond that, express litigation over the constitutional concerns of the fetus itself would lead into the legal personhood legal battles that have been fought already (and overwhelmingly seen the defeat of attempted personhood ballot initiatives and legislation) (see earlier posts here and here). Thus, an indirect genetically-determined legal climate of maternal rights emerges if these laws work as intended – with the twist that the relevant genetic information is derived from the fetus. While is appears that these laws are unworkable as a practical matter, these bills can formally require the provider to question the mother about her motives and can impose felony charges on a physician violating the ban. The Ohio bill is likely to pass, and join the North Dakota bill alone in targeting maternal rights on the basis of a fetal genetic anomaly. Proponents of these bills have argued that, for example, the current climate of genetic testing only encourages the elimination of offspring with detectable genetic abnormalities, with the result that Down syndrome births become increasingly uncommon, and they invoke a kind of disability discrimination argument in support of these measures (however, that leads back to the fetal personhood debate). Opponents argue that the Roe-based constitutional right to seek an abortion – while certainly cabined by many modern legislative limitations – is not conditioned on maternal motive or the genetic status of the fetus, but is simply motivated by a desire to limit women's reproductive choices.