Genetic counselling: ethical mediation of eugenic futures?

This paper examines some proposals concerning the involvement of genetic co unsellors in reproductive decisionmaking. This involvement represents the f uture situation as being shaped decisively by the "relevant" knowledge of p owerful medical and other political interests. The paper deconstructs and r eorders this proposed knowledge in order to make it problematic. The projec ted involvement of genetic counselling backed by claims of ethical expertis e is rendered denaturalised and particular, opening a conceptual space for the emergence of other futures. An alternative future in which public commu nication, not private medical decisions, is given as the primary ethical fo cus. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.