Could Prenatal DNA Testing Open Pandora’s Box?
A follow-up to Betsy’s post on pre-natal DNA testing:
That knowledge has a flip side. “How much responsibility are we expecting people to take for the genetic makeup of any child they might have?” asks Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank near New York City.
If a child is born with a condition that could have been detected, the presence of the test changes that outcome “from something that happened to you, to something that you participated in,” she says.
“That’s a very big burden to place on would-be parents,” she said.
I already know parents with Downs Syndrome children who have been chided by strangers: “How could you let that happen? There’s testing for that, you know. How irresponsible!” Will the same soon be true if a child has diabetes? Cancer? Allergies? Where do we draw the line?
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