ABSTRACT
The completion of the first draft of the human genome has given fresh impetus to debates about genetic possibilities and their applications in medicine, and also about the philosophical and ethical implications. Publication of the results has facilitated predictions of a paradigm shift in medicine (Schmidt, 1998): questions arise concerning not only the extent to which these predictions are sound, but also the need for new thinking in ethics. Genetics has tested the limits of ethical thinking in a number of ways, partly in so far as it has led to discussions of personhood and determinism, and partly in giving rise to re-examination, not only of the applicability, but also of the meaning of concepts such as autonomy and privacy. Further, while a central concern among both bioethicists and the public has been control over genetic data, and while this has usually been discussed in terms familiar from medical ethics - that is, as a right of confidentiality and privacy, for some time debates about 'new genetics' have given rise to vigorous debates over the thesis of genetic exceptionalism. This thesis holds that there is a difference in kind between genetics and other areas of medicine, because, for example, genetic information is predictive, not specific to time, and shared between blood relatives. The difference in kind, if there is one, may also affect the terms in which the ethical debated should be conducted. Arguments against genetic exceptionalism point to other areas of medicine that share, at least to some extent, some of these features: there are non-genetic tests that are predictive; a person's HIV status is relevant not only to him or herself.
