Genetic Screening :: Science Technology Religion Papers

catching ScreeningThe door opens and your doctor steps into the room. The doctor is wearing a frown on his face. He tells you that they just got your adjudicates back from the lab and wants to p bent you to a genic counselor. Given the current trend in our partnership man y of us may fare this situation in our future. But what does this mean to our lives, what squirt these tests really tell us? In this document I will address what type of tests are considered genetic screening and what they stub tell us, the ethical argument s floating(a) around in the media today, and how you should embrace this new technology. What is Genetic screening numerous of the tests we call genetic screening are for pregnant women. Pregnant women are given umteen tests to screen for possible fetal developmental problems. any(prenominal) of the tests through with(p) are blood tests to tell if the women has a higher sensitiveness t o have a baby with spina bifida, or fetal Down syndrome. (Blatt 19 97) These tests are safer than the incursive tests and many people are hoping that someday all of the genetic screening done will be done on the mothers blood, this te chnique is called fetal cell sorting. But today many of the tests that bed be done on the fetus require invasive techniques, like a needle for amniocentesis and precutaneous umbilical blood sampling where a needle is inserted into an umbilical vein in ue tero. These tests can very screen the genes of the fetuses. And in some situations women choose to terminate pregnancies because of the results. One test done on newborns has been in practice since the sixties. Phenylketonuria is a ailment that can cause retardation if not caught early enough in a childs development. The government has mandated the testing of newborn for this metabolic i mbalance that can be treated by proper diet. (Blatt 1997) many a(prenominal) other diseases can be diagnosed at birth with relatively no danger to the child as compared to the invasive procedure describe earlier. But many of these diseases that can be diagnosed have no known treatment for them like Phenylketonuria. From newborns on up to adulthood many new diseases can be diagnosed. Many tests have been developed, and more are developed everyday thanks to the gay Genome Project. The sheer enormity of data scientists are being presented with virtually encounter that almost everyone will have some genetic disorder that could be identified.