Protecting the vulnerable: Genetic testing and screening for parentage, immigration, and aboriginality
(2006) Protecting the vulnerable: Genetic testing and screening for parentage, immigration, and aboriginality, in Betta, Michela, Eds. The moral, social, and commercial imperatives of genetic testing and screening : the Australian case, chapter 11, pages pp. 221-236. Springer.
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Abstract
As health care professions, law enforcement agencies, governments, employers, insurance companies and others rush to utilise genetic information about individuals with whom they interact or have relationships with, conflict may arise between different stakeholders. In such circumstances, it may be the function of ethics to balance competing interests and activities, explore alternatives and options and protect the vulnerable from harm. Ethics may explore and advise on issues of the moral life, but sometimes it needs the backup of constructive policy developments and the investigative, protective and guiding forces of the law to achieve a more mutually beneficial outcome. This chapter on DNA kinship testing is an example of such merging of forces, namely ethics, policy and law to protect the vulnerable. It portrays the effects of unethical behaviour on three different stakeholders and makes some recommendations on how to re-establish and protect the moral life. Genetic kinship testing can create multiple vulnerabilities, all of which can be experienced on an individual, societal and cultural level. Parentage testing stands as an example where vulnerability to an individual is created by not observing proper consent procedures; genetic identity testing for immigration purposes discusses identify fraud and the potential harm to society; and, lastly, DNA kinship testing of Australia’s Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander peoples demonstrates that it is appropriate to sometimes let the socio-cultural triumph over the biological.
| Item Type: | Book Chapter |
|---|---|
| RM Number: | 2007006621 |
| Status: | Published |
| Place of Publication: | Dordrecht |
| Keywords: | genetic testing; genetic screening; DNA parentage testing; paternity testing; informed consent; ethics; immigration; identity fraud; DNA kinship testing; indigeneous Australian, Aboriginal |
| Subjects: | 390000 Law, Justice and Law Enforcement > 390400 Law Enforcement 370000 Studies in Human Society > 370500 Demography 370000 Studies in Human Society > 379900 Other Studies in Human Society > 379902 Aboriginal Studies 360000 Policy and Political Science > 360200 Policy and Administration > 360201 Public Policy 360000 Policy and Political Science 440000 Philosophy and Religion > 440100 Philosophy > 440104 Applied Ethics (incl. Bioethics and Environmental Ethics) |
| ID Code: | 6361 |
| Deposited By: | Gesche, Astrid |
| Deposited On: | 13 March 2007 |
| Alternative Locations: | http://www.springer.com/dal/home/generic/search/results?SGWID=1-40109-22-136777805-0 |
| Copyright Owner: | Copyright 2006 Springer |
| Additional Information: | For more information about this book please refer to the publisher's website (see link) or contact the author. Author contact details :a.gesche@qut.edu.au |