The Public Framing

The purpose of framing was not to ‘solve’ pre-birth testing but to create a frame for public deliberation. To do this, we asked participants to tell us about all the points-of-view they knew about from their experience and through the range of their diverse contacts. Participants were asked them to interview 5 people before taking part in the framing groups.

Rather than judging these points-of-view, participants were asked to group the points-of-view into distinct approaches to pre-birth testing according to the underlying values and principles and then to consider the benefits, drawbacks, actions for implementation and (unintended) consequences for each approach.

The process is fully detailed in Framing Issues for Public Deliberation: A curriculum guide for workshops, which is available from the Kettering Foundation.

56 members of the public from diverse backgrounds attended the following 1-day framing exercises: