Medical ethics is colliding with parents’ desire for DNA data during pregnancy.
Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 10 months ago to Philosophy
So one father figured out how to work around the FDA and medical ethicist to obtain a complete decoding of his in utero son's DNA for his own interpretation and use.
From the article: On his blog, Khan has called access to DNA data a “right” that government and doctors are trying to squelch. If medicine insists on blocking access to gene data, he warned in 2011, consumers might be forced to generate the data on their own, perhaps by purchasing used sequencing machines and running them in their homes or in shared labs. “How dare the government question your right to know the basic genetic building blocks of who you are,” he wrote.
What do Objectivist have to say about Khan's question and decision?
My opinion - Khan's correct.
From the article: On his blog, Khan has called access to DNA data a “right” that government and doctors are trying to squelch. If medicine insists on blocking access to gene data, he warned in 2011, consumers might be forced to generate the data on their own, perhaps by purchasing used sequencing machines and running them in their homes or in shared labs. “How dare the government question your right to know the basic genetic building blocks of who you are,” he wrote.
What do Objectivist have to say about Khan's question and decision?
My opinion - Khan's correct.
The "government right" now is tied into Obamacare. Now that we "are our brother's keeper", the government has what they consider a responsibility to minimize costs (at the expense of privacy).
As for pre-birth abortion based on the results of such DNA sequencing, I know I would never do that. I consider it anti-life. However, as the libertarian that I am, I do not consider it my place to tell you what to do. All I will say that one must be able to live with the decisions that one makes.
One of my very favorite movies.
FDA has overreached very far in many different directions, just like all the other TLA agencies of the government.
23andme is a case in point. FDA shut down part of their services. They can run your DNA for geneaology only now. The FDA has forbidden them from providing you medical info based on your DNA.
From the article: "His father, Razib Khan, is a graduate student and professional blogger on genetics who says he worked out a rough draft of his son’s genome early this year in a do-it-yourself fashion... “My guess is that a few people may have done this privately already,” says Jay Shendure, an expert in fetal genomics at the University of Washington. “But this is the only case where someone is being public about it. I think it’s going to become a lot more common.” -- [I think that it is commoner now. -- MEM]
Also from the article: " Yet DNA isn’t always destiny—sometimes a person has a genetic defect but no symptoms...." So, if you have a right or a duty to decide whether to bear and raise a child with a ponderable handicap, does that extend to your grandchildren? Diabetes is a an easy example. Can you, should you, choose to limit your passing on that gene, even if it is recessive?
(I was born with a genetic defect that was corrected and seems not to have been inherited (judged by gross anatomy), but without sequencing, how would I know, and what would I choose? Dunno... tough question... the best ones always are...