ABSTRACT
In the work of two national commissions and a widely used textbook on biomedical ethics, three ethical principles have been identified as quite important: beneficence, justice, and respect for autonomy. The first of these principles, beneficence, is also called well-being or welfare in the broad sense. This chapter reports on what seems to be generally accepted about the predominant ethos among genetic counselors. There are two primary implications of the principle of respect for autonomy in the genetic counseling relationship. The first is that genetic counselors are generally committed to respecting their clients’ freedom to make their own decisions. The second is that genetic counselors have a strong commitment to protecting the privacy of their clients and the confidentiality of information about the lifestyles or genetic conditions of those clients.
