§ Mrs. Doris Fisherasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will make a statement on the advances made in genetics and their effect on the accurate forecasting of preventable physical and mental handicaps.
§ Mrs. ThatcherModern advances in genetics make it possible, through genetic counselling, to predict the risk to particular parents that they might produce a child with a condition which could cause mental or physical handicap. Techniques still at the experimental stage are being developed, under the auspices of the Medical Research Council and in several university departments, to forecast more accurately in individual pregnancies known to be at risk whether the unborn child will be affected by genetically determined conditions.