Tonight’s Topics

1. Tonight’s Topics • Exam Post Mortem • Term paper outlines • Eugenics and Genetic Research

2. Eugenics and Genetic Research • Human Genome Project • Genetic Screening and Counseling • Gene Therapy • Eugenics

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. Prenatal diagnosis is possible for many defects • Tay-Sachs, XYY, Down Syndrome, Neural Tube Defects • Tests carry risks of miscarriage and injury to fetus

7. 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?

8. 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

9. 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

10. Ethical Issues Associated with Eugenics • Negative eugenics has little impact (most defects are recessive) • Positive eugenics holds little promise (we don’t understand the science) • We don’t agree about what is desirable and undesirable on a large scale

11. 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

12. Hubbard and Lewontin on Pitfalls of Genetic testing • Genetic testing causes more harm than good • Risks are statistical—not well understood and other causes intervene • Tests without treatments only cause anxiety

13. 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

14. Purdy: Can Having Children be Immoral? • Sometimes it is immoral to have children. • So, some parents should be prevented from reproducing

15. 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.

16. Arguments Supporting Genetic Abortion • Societal good. • Social Worthiness. • Familial good (parental good). • A healthy and sound child

17. Munson and Davis on Germ-Line Therapy • Germ-line therapy holds tremendous promise, yet people oppose it • The arguments against germ-line therapy don’t work • The therapeutic imperative of medicine says we cannot abandon this line of research.

18. Arguments Against Germ-Line Therapy • Violates the right to an unaltered genome • Produces conflicts between individual rights and societal goods • Amounts to playing God