Chapter 6 Flashcards
What is Huntingtons Disease?
A disease that occurs from a signal genetic mutation, and is responsible for causing an inevitable sickness that makes the patient go through a long, agonizing death
Who wrote “two kinds of eugenics”?
Nicholas Agar
What are the two types of eugenics outlined in “two kinds of eugenics”?
authoritarian and liberal
what is meant by liberal eugenics?
the parents are the decision makers and can decide to implement whatever traits they wish their child to have
what are the two kinds of voluntary eugenics?
laissez fare eugenics and Utopian eugenics
define laissez fare eugenics
allows individuals to decide what to test, when, and what to do about it
what is wrong with laissez fare eugenics
Has to know ethical boundaries, very subjective. people could use it to abort the baby girl if they wanted a boy, or if they wanted an athletic child, or the child had the obesity gene
define utopian genetics
- balance between freedom,scientific knowledge, and social conditions
- citizens educated but not forced
- available to all
what is pre-symptomatic testing
the ability to test genes for diseases before the disease manifests itself
why would some people want “no to know’ that they have a terminal disease that will manifest itself?
there is a big difference between knowing you have a disease and thinking you have a disease. Knowing you will die at a certain time is disconcerting
what is the argument for knowing?
knowing will prevent you from having offspring that will have the same disease
knowing when you will die allows you to plan your life accordingly
What is a big ethical gap in genetic testing?
the difference between detecting a problem in the genome and then being able to treat it
define somatic gene therapy
inserting a corrected copy of a mutated gene into the cells of the patients body
define germ line therapy
the corrections to mutated genes are made in the sperm and the egg before they merge, preventing any bad genetics getting passed to the child
what is an objection to germ line therapy
the limited understanding of gene interaction and accidentally screwing things up