ABSTRACT

This chapter concentrates on the impact of prenatal genomics, but important ethical issues of postnatal uses, such as genetic discrimination, geneticization and so on should not be forgotten. Genomic science is linked to disability through a traumatic history. Any kind of prenatal screening for disability, whether genetic or not, is based on predictions about lives that people with particular kinds of body will go on to lead. Disability scholars argue that this is discriminatory because it targets particular pieces of information that are associated with disability but that in isolation cannot predict the future phenotype with certainty. The expressivist objection becomes much more plausible when applied to healthcare policy. So the expressivist objection may be a compelling one, at least when applied to policy. Working from general obligation to promote wellbeing, Julian Savulescu and G. Kahane have proposed a principle of procreative beneficence that underpins an actual parental obligation to use whatever means available to benefit health of future children.