Reference no: EM132175351
Discussion : Quality of Life
Discuss one or more of the emerging technologies, you believe have the potential for ethical abuse or conflicts that would affect one's quality of life. Provide examples - you might consider the digital divide, video games, screen time for children, or whatever you prefer.
Quality of Life.
Personalized genetic tests has a lot of potential for ethical abuse and can impact a person's quality of life. The concern rest on personalized test results being released as public health information (Fulda & Lykens, 2006). What if that information was made available to insurance carriers, employers, or even society based on results from a genetic test. The potential moral and ethical implications are genetic discrimination.
What if those results were placed into a nationwide public health system? Fulda and Lykens conclude that it is all about finding a balance. They stated that there are four ethical considerations that need to be taken into consideration when making a moral decision. The four ethical considerations are privacy, autonomy, personal best interest and responsibility (Fulda & Lykens, 2006).
Citation is for the text below, which is unedited from original source
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Assessing Genetic Risks; Andrews LB, Fullarton JE, Holtzman NA, et al., editors. Assessing Genetic
Risks: Implications for Health and Social Policy. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1994. 8, Social, Legal, and Ethical Implications of Genetic Testing
Each new genetic test that is developed raises serious issues for medicine, public health, and social policy regarding the circumstances under which the test should be used, how the test is implemented, and what uses are made of its results.
Should people be allowed to choose or refuse the test, or should it be mandatory, as newborn screening is in some states?
Should people be able to control access to the results of their tests? If test results are released to third parties such as employers or insurers, what protections should be in place to ensure that people are not treated unfairly because of their genotype?
Respect for autonomy also implies the right of persons to control the future use of genetic material submitted for analysis for a specific purpose (including when the genetic material itself and the information derived from that material may be stored for future analysis, such as in a DNA bank or registry file).
Even though respect for autonomy is centrally important in our society, it is not absolute. It can be overridden in some circumstances, for example, to prevent serious harm to others, as is the case in mandatory newborn screening for phenylketonuria (PKU) and hypothyroidism.
In the legal sphere, the principle of privacy is an umbrella concept encompassing issues of both autonomy and confidentiality. The right to make choices about one's health care is protected, in part, by the right to privacy guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, as well as state constitutions. This includes a right to make certain reproductive choices,13 such as whether to use genetic testing.14 It also includes a right to refuse treatment.
An entirely different standard of privacy protects personal information. A few court decisions find protection for such information under the constitutional doctrine of privacy,15 but more commonly, privacy protection against disclosure of personal information is found under common law tort principles.16 In addition, there is a federal privacy act,17 as well as state statutes protecting privacy.