What Is “NIPT”? Divergent Characterizations of Noninvasive Prenatal Testing Strategies

Background: Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) strategies that analyze cell-free fetal DNA found in maternal blood have proliferated in the past several years. Many different parties have been involved in the development, evaluation, and diffusion of NIPT, resulting in rhizomatic growth of this technology. Here, we use a technology studies lens to examine the way NIPT has been constructed in informational documents and offer suggestions for ethics analysis. Methods: An inductive qualitative content analysis was conducted on 20 documents produced by organizations that claim authority to construct a version of NIPT (13 vendor documents, 7 health professional society documents). Results: Analysis revealed that each document describes a different version of the test, offering different claims of purpose, target population, health care professional involvement, relationship to other technologies, fallibility, and risk. Conclusions: The different versions of NIPT technologies entail different sets of ethical questions and issues. An ethics analysis of NIPT should consider the specific features of the technology under consideration, which may open the analysis to consider more specific ethical, social, and organizational implications of that technology.