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{ Tag Archives } responsibility

IGNORANCE IS BLISS?

The right not to know is an intriguing concept in this information age. Can knowledge be damaging? And within the genetic moral code, can ignorance be bliss?
Once genetic information is revealed without request, the potential carrier has to deal with the implications of this knowledge while not having the time to emotionally prepare. The privilege [...]

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2009 09 01 responsibility Comments (0)

DISCLOSURE

Ethical questions around the disclosure of genetic information to family members can contribute to the nature versus nurture debate. A transmitted mutation is given by nature, but it is in being informed of its existence that behaviour may change.
Although genetic information is inherently familial, to expect it to be distributed between all family members is [...]

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2009 09 01 responsibility Comments (0)

MONSTERS

The fear of an alien presence invading the body, nourishing itself from its cells and harming it before departing to become a detached (and sometimes alien) entity, is often attached to the anxiety of pregnancy. In films like Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby or Lynch’s Eraserhead, this anxiety is represented by the horror of the parent who [...]

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2009 08 19 meta Comments (0)

having your cake and eating it

So how does a mutation carrier gets to have a biological child AND avoid being blamed for endowing them with a potentially harmful genetic inheritance? This is where science comes into play and the genetic screening is performed on a selection of embryos instead of after birth.
This screening technique - called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) [...]

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2009 07 27 science Comments (0)

freedom of choice

As demonstrated by Lemke in the quote below, genetic information is perceived as the ‘key to freedom’. What does this freedom entail? Is it freedom of uncertainty? Freedom of doubt? Freedom of guilt? It can be argued that one of those promised new freedoms is the freedom of choice. Hence in order to exercise this [...]

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2009 06 23 ethics Comments (0)

Genetic enlightenment

My assumption is that the concept of information is crucial in this context. In the molecular genetic perspective, information at the same time serves as the ‘code of life’ and as the ‘key to freedom’. If the body is nothing other than a genetic program, then disease points to a communication problem. However, this means [...]

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2009 06 23 ethics Comments (0)

the fear industries

Business ventures such as umbilical cord blood banks and genetics diagnosis services target parental fears and establish new familial duties. The decision to reproduce is culturally linked to an array of responsibilities: financial, emotional, psychological. When we believe it is in our power to determine the unborn’s future health we are told we must also [...]

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2009 06 23 Knowledge Comments (0)