The Form and Substance of Ethics: Prenatal Diagnosis in the Baird Report

This article analyses the employment of textual tactics in the Final Report of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. The author argues that the Commission uses these tactics to persuade several different audiences that its stance is correct, and simultaneously to manage dissent over new reproductive technologies. Analysis of textual tactics opens the ethical position of the Commission to substantive questioning. The authorfocuses on the Commission's discussion of prenatal diagnosis for genetic anomalies and concludes that the Commission fails to engage with ethical arguments put forward by persons with disabilities and their advocates. The conclusion also encourages the development of an ethics of disability.