Bioethics Essay 1 Sam Vallentine – 430211968 – 2015 Is genetic testing a threat to the rights of disabled people? Genetic testing is not a threat to the rights of disabled people because it does not necessarily imply any negative sentiments towards people with disability. Investigating genetic trait possibilities, diseases or disabilities in unborn infants, children, or adults does not directly threaten the integrity, autonomy, or inherent value of disabled members of society because simply looking for or knowing about such traits is not directly linked to eradicating or ‘curing’ carriers of them. Although medical practice policies and social customs surrounding the use of the information gained from genetic testing can potentially be a threat to the rights of the disabled, they can also be a source of aid and strengthening for disabled people, therefore it is an unsupported assumption that genetic testing poses a direct threat to disabled people’s rights. Many conditions can be tested for by analysis of someone’s (or that person’s parents) DNA. There are diseases …show more content…
Some indicated that their own doctors put them ‘under enormous pressure to terminate throughout [their] pregnancy.’ This is an example of a medical practice policy posing a huge threat to the rights people with DS but it is also a counter-example against the claim that the prenatal test is itself offensive, as the mother goes on to say that ‘if I wasn’t a strong woman with a supportive husband I would have given in to the pressure.’ Here we see the woman having a prenatal screening test without looking to terminate if positive. Indeed she rejects the doctor’s urging, suggesting that her intentions for getting the test were not in any way linked to an intention to abort. This is elucidated by a different mother’s experience found elsewhere on the same page of the