Even after the revision of the Embryo Protection Law in 2011, the practice of PGD is not uncontroversial. Critics are often countered by arguing why the legislator, on the one hand, should permit PND and, on the other hand, should prohibit PGD (as it was the case before the legislative amendment), since both PND and PGD aim for the determination of malformations of the unborn child. Proponents of the admissibility of PGD on pluripotent stem cells claim that PGD could be considered a temporarily anticipated PND by means of which the number of abortions could be reduced, which have to be considered far more critically due to the fetus' advanced stage of development.
Critics of PND object this analogy and point towards various initial situations. In the case of an abortion, an unpredictable conflict between the protection of the life of the fetus and the vital interests of the woman arises within the natural development process of the fetus.
In comparison to this, it is only through the action of physicians that a situation such as the one given above, within which the protection of the fetus and the interests of the pregnant woman have to be balanced, arises in the case of a PGD.