Accusations of responsibility can be not only condescending and insulting, but also distracting, drawing attention away from what is really at stake: often questions about role-related responsibilities and about the degree to which human beings should try to shape the world in which we find ourselves.
When Andre talks about the degree to which we try and shape the world in the context of genetic responsibility, it brings up further questions about eugenics. In the case of prenatal testing for the BRCA1 mutation, the desire to discontinue the mutation’s existence by embryo selection can be seen as a personal matter, an act of responsibility or parental protectiveness. However it can also be looked at from society’s perspective - do the social disapproval of genetic “irresponsibility” along with the existence of PGD technologies promote an aspiration to engineer the human population and eliminate undesirable heritable characteristics?
Should genetics be harnessed to attempts to shape a world with no illness? As science and technology push us to reassess and redefine the existing moral codes, have we grown so fearful of illness that even the genetic potential to disease makes a person less valid in the future we are aiming to construct?
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