Ethical issues in prenatal diagnosis and therapeutic abortion in Iran

Prenatal Diagnosis (PND) is one of the most controversial and challenging issues in the modern medicine around the world. Different countries have a various approaches toward this intricate issue. Crosslinking between religion and medicine or health is explicit in this field; so various aspects should be considered in the policy and compliment of the rules for PND. In many cases, the most controversial issue after PND is deciding for therapeutic abortion. In some religions or cultures and countries, this action is completely forbidden; but in the others, parents can choose the pregnancy termination till the delivery or until special time of gestation. Because of the high rate of the consanguineous marriage in Iran (up to 60% in some areas) PND and therapeutic abortion is available and needed to prevent some inherited disorders. In Iran; according to religion and believes, therapeutic abortion is only acceptable under special conditions that could be harmful for mother’s health or considered threaten for her life. Also some severe conditions like mental and physical disabilities in fetus could leads to arranged termination of pregnancy. Therapeutic abortion for aforementioned conditions should be done before fetus ensoulment. These conditions should approved by Iran Legal Medicine organization. In this review, we will discuss all related issues. This will help other countries and similar cultures to implement such regulations for these conditions.