ABSTRACT
Modern genetic science enables the identification, manipulation and control of our genes. Genetic services arising from this science provide the means to predict and influence health and wellbeing. The ability to rapidly, increasingly and inexpensively sequence a person’s entire human genome1 means that people can discover if they possess genetic traits which predispose them to ill health. Knowing this information could alter the individual’s perspective of her life and her feelings about herself in ways which do not necessarily change her choices, actions and desires. On the other hand, having information about the trajectory of her health may influence the individual to follow a different life plan to that which she might have followed if she had not had the information. The information might be useful in making decisions about early drug therapy, or risk avoidance measures, or about making lifestyle decisions which are not related to obviating or minimizing health risks. Knowing about personal genetic risks necessarily means that the individual also knows about risks to her relatives and to her future offspring. The ability to identify deleterious genetic traits at the embryonic stage and discard embryos that possess that genetic make-up means that information concerning one’s own genetic traits has implications in reproductive decision-making. The central idea in this book is that the ability to identify, manipulate and control our genes might lead to the development of new kinds of grievance that might present novel legal challenges. Four potential novel claims are identified which might arise from genetic services: two concerning reproductive genetic services and two concerning genetic information. For the most part, these hypothetical genomic claims arise due to the culpable carelessness of an individual who has undertaken to assist the aggrieved party in her genetic project. In the absence of dedicated regulation, or a contract, it is argued that these genomic claims are most likely to be articulated as novel
1 For information on the development of a new generation of sequencing technologies which enables sequencing DNA at unprecedented speed, promoting novel biological applications see S. C. Schuster, ‘Next-Generation Sequencing Transforms Today’s Biology’ 5 (2008), Nature Methods 16.
