Tonights Topics

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Tonights Topics

• Exam Post Mortem
• Term paper outlines
• Eugenics and Genetic Research

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Eugenics and Genetic Research

• Human Genome Project
• Genetic Screening and Counseling
• Gene Therapy
• Eugenics

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Human Genome Project

• Goal Map and sequence all 100,000 human genes
• Genetic markers identified for many diseases
• Genetic markers give rise to DNA tests and
  screening

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Ethical Issues Raised by the Genome Project

• Screening for predispositions
• Screening of workers
• Screening and counseling for marriage and
  childbirth
• Informing children
• The end of insurance

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Genetic Screening and Counseling

• 2,000 diseases have genetic factors
• Tests are available for many devastating diseases
• Many obey strict Mendelian transmission laws
  (eugenics)
• Prenatal diagnosis is possible for many defects
• Selective abortion

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Prenatal diagnosis is possible for many defects

• Tay-Sachs, XYY, Down Syndrome, Neural Tube
  Defects
• Tests carry risks of miscarriage and injury to
  fetus

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Ethical Issues in Screening and Counseling

• Is there a right to have an impaired child?
• Is society justified in requiring screening?
• Must parents be informed of tests that are
  available?
• Are patients (parents) entitled to know test
  results?

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Gene Therapy

• Goal Use recombinant DNA technology to
  eliminate or correct genetic defects
• Dramatic progress in technology
• Distinguish somatic cell therapy from germ line
  therapy

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Eugenics

• Goal To improve the genome through either the
  encouragement of favorable genes (positive
  eugenics) or reducing the number of undesirable
  genes (negative eugenics).
• The idea of eugenics has a long history, and has
  surfaced repeatedly in the 20th century

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Ethical Issues Associated with Eugenics

• Negative eugenics has little impact (most defects
  are recessive)
• Positive eugenics holds little promise (we dont
  understand the science)
• We dont agree about what is desirable and
  undesirable on a large scale

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Review of the Readings

• Hubbard and Lewontin on Pitfalls of Genetic
  testing
• Purdy on the immorality of some parenting
• Kass on the ethical problems with prenatal
  screening
• Davis on germ-line therapy

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Hubbard and Lewontin on Pitfalls of Genetic
testing

• Genetic testing causes more harm than good
• Risks are statisticalnot well understood and
  other causes intervene
• Tests without treatments only cause anxiety

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Purdy Can Having Children be Immoral?

• Sometimes it is immoral to have children.
• Duty to provide each child with a normal
  opportunity for a good life.
• No harm follows from being prevented from
  existing
• Duty to provide normal opportunity outweighs
  parental right to reproduce

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Purdy Can Having Children be Immoral?

• Sometimes it is immoral to have children.
• So, some parents should be prevented from
  reproducing

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Kass on the Implications of Prenatal Screening

• Genetic abortion renders all persons with
  disabilities second class citizens. Recall Baby
  Doe.
• We should not reduce people to their afflictions
  lest we embrace the view that defectives should
  not be born.
• None of the standards used to justify genetic
  abortion work.

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Arguments Supporting Genetic Abortion

• Societal good.
• Social Worthiness.
• Familial good (parental good).
• A healthy and sound child

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Munson and Davis on Germ-Line Therapy

• Germ-line therapy holds tremendous promise, yet
  people oppose it
• The arguments against germ-line therapy dont
  work
• The therapeutic imperative of medicine says we
  cannot abandon this line of research.

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Arguments Against Germ-Line Therapy

• Violates the right to an unaltered genome
• Produces conflicts between individual rights and
  societal goods
• Amounts to playing God

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