ABSTRACT
Although the ethical, legal and economic issues raised by the encounter of private insurance and pre-symptomatic genetic information are still marginal,1 forward-looking scholarship predicts that the combination of the ongoing dismantling of collective social insurance systems2 and the future generalisation of genetic testing in the general population will soon render these issues vital for society (Radetzki et al, 2003; Billings, 2005, Geller et al, 1996, Billings et al, 1992). Debates about the proper use of genetic information in insurance and employment are typically framed in an anticipatory perspective, and in view of a projected context that is often represented as the inevitable future state of affairs. Legal scholars, prompted to provide legal responses to what is presented to them as the most pressing issues of the post-genomic era – the imminent threats of genetic discrimination and the forecasted violations of genetic privacy – are often reluctant to question the preconceptions and representations of the future on which their policy recommendations are grounded. Assessing preconceptions, however, is probably what is most urgently needed in the present situation.
