ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the often neglected ethical issues of genetic engineering and human reproduction in relation to mate selection. Informed choice is not just an administrative duty, but an ethical principle which entails the active involvement of the patient in his/her healing process. To restrict one’s freedom on the basis of prediction is ethically unsound, unless it can be established that such prediction is made in acceptable confidence. As an integral part, the genome project also involves an evaluation of the major ethical, legal, and social implications. If most psychiatric disorders have a genetic basis and could be correctly identified genetically, there will be a new ethical dilemma. Pharmaceutical companies also hold vast amounts of genetic information and there is ethical concern over the commodification of genetic data. Ethical problems arise as to whose offspring one is, and when the third-party sperms are used not because of infertility of the original sperms, but for the avoidance of possible genetic damage.
