Ethics and Genetic Capability
Richard R. MacMahon, Ph.D.
Your feedback is important to us!
After viewing our curriculum units, please take a few minutes to help us understand how the units, which were created by public school teachers, may be useful to others.
PRACTICUM
STRATEGIES
Students will learn by role-playing. This unit consists of
four situations in which the students may become involved in
determining the outcome of issues which are based on genetics.
These four situations are:
-
1. A suit brought by a couple against a physician because they were not given proper genetic counseling and subsequently had a child with Down’s syndrome.
-
2. A thirty year old person fired from her job because her genetic profile, which showed that she was carrying the gene for Huntington disease, became available to her employer.
-
3. A young woman is found to be carrying the BRCA1 gene. Her request for payment for a prophylactic mastectomy is rejected by her insurance company. Shortly after she is fired and her medical insurance is terminated.
-
4. A proposed law in 2010 requires sterilization of anyone whose IQ score is less than 70.
BACKGROUNDS
Situation #1: Down’s syndrome is a genetic disorder resulting from aneuploidy, the presence of an extra chromosome 21. This extra chromosome results from a non-disjunction during the production of a human ovum. Sometimes the extra portion of chromosome 21 may be translocated to chromosome 15. The symptoms of this syndrome include characteristic facial features, a flattening of the face, lack of development of the nasal area, and the characteristic eye shape—similar to the almond-shaped eye of oriental people. Other symptoms include heart defects, an increased susceptibility to respiratory infections, short stature and mental retardation. The tongue is enlarged and flat and this makes speech difficult. The life span is also much shorter than normal, with 50% of the afflicted children dying by the age of five. As a woman gets older, the chances of having a child with Down’s syndrome increases. Table II below clearly shows this increase (Stirling, 1996)
