Moral approaches to genetic screening and testing

Abstract

The general aim of the thesis is to discuss and analyse the ethical issues regarding genetic screening and testing. The aim is to identify whether testing and screening pose threats such as eugenics practices and disadvantaging certain groups in modern society and to find a background against which one can dialogue to reach desired goals. Genetics has been an issue during the last hundred years. Starting out as eugenic practices which were hailed in many countries as the solution to improving society, it peaked at a stage whereby with its excuse racism led to genocide. This naturally left a negative heritage impacting on the modern development of the life sciences. All genetic research and attempts to improve even specific genetic conditions were henceforth surrounded with the aura of the holocaust. Eugenics took on a negative turn. Indeed with the awaking of the value of persons and the recognition that there is no race superior to another, eugenics, rightly so, came to be associated with where we do not want to go. The thesis thus analyzes three basic questions: what is eugenics and is it still a threat today; can and should we protect future generations from genetic manipulation; is the human genome a ‘common heritage’; finally, is there anything special about genetic tests or is this all mere fear of our past? Should doctors order genetic tests as if they were ordering a cholesterol test? Or are there indeed social, legal and ethical implications which other tests may not carry so strongly? [excerpt]