Risk, parental autonomy and the epistemic divide: preimplantation genetic diagnosis in the Australian print news media, 1990-2007

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is a reproductive/genetic technology which has become the subject of public and scholarly debate because it involves the evaluation and consequent selection (and implantation) or destruction of human embryos. This research investigates the way PGD is constituted in the Australian print news media. Foucauldian discourse analysis reveals that proponents draw on their direct knowledge and experience of PGD to support their claims. There is an epistemic divide between consumers and others claiming direct knowledge, and critics and others drawing on indirect or abstract understandings of PGD. This divide characterizes the discourses present in the data and is directly linked to changes in these over the period under analysis.