Facilitating Informed Choice: Disability Advocacy and the Genetic Counseling Profession

During the late 20th century, many disability self-advocates criticized the genetic counseling field for its role in disability-related prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion. The National Society of Genetic Counselors, seeking to retain its focus on facilitating informed choice, largely overlooked or dismissed these critiques. This talk traces the role of disability self-advocates in influencing the views and curricular investments of multiple genetic counseling training program directors. In doing so, these collaborators helped to retain an open and active conversation in the field about genetic counselors' responsibility to promote more positive, inclusive, and accepting narratives of disability to their patients, students, colleagues, and in society.

Please contact Suzanne Moon (suzannemoon@ou.edu) for Zoom access or questions regarding accessibility.