**6. Ethical considerations**

Biomedical ethics is based on applying various principles in order to create a framework of moral analysis that allows the practitioner to make an optimal decision in agreement with the patients' wishes/needs and their point of view.

Medical genetics is one of the medical fields in which, from the very beginning, sensitive ethical issues have been raised; their importance subsequently became more and more undeniable due to technological advances and discoveries in the field (see Human Genome Project, Next Generation Sequence, and Whole Genome/Exome Sequencing).

Of all the areas of genetics, prenatal diagnosis raises the most fervent debates and, consequently, ethical dilemmas. It is one of the chapters that are hard to fit in an accurate guide for the clinician, sufficient enough to use and make sure he has done or said what is needed to ensure that the health of the patient and family is protected.

The particularity of this field is derived from the existence of two entities whose rights must be taken into account: on one hand, the "patient," the unborn fetus at different stages of development at the time of the diagnosis request, and on the other hand, the mother/couple requesting the diagnosis. Although the phrase"on one hand and … on the other side" might seem inappropriate, it still reflects reality, because not always the rights of the patient are on the same side as those of the parents. And here lies the first dilemma: autonomy vs. benefit.
