On Sunday, Slate republished an article from New Scientist , written by Harriet A. Washington, that reflected on the anxieties and dilemmas that may stem from peeking into a fetus s genome before birth. Do You Really Want to Know Your Baby s Genetics? the title asks.

The piece is a response to a new technological advance in looking at a baby s genetic makeup while it s still in utero. Over the summer, two teams of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle and Stanford University independently reported that they could now map a fetus s entire genome during the first trimester by drawing Mom s blood that contains bits of fetal DNA.