Genetic Screening and the Right Not to Know
![handle is hein.journals/ilmed13 and id is 271 raw text is: Genetic Screening and the
Right Not to Know
Kirke D. Weaver, J.D.*
ABSTRACT: This article discusses the basic elements of genetic
screening and monitoring, the Americans With Disabilities Act of
1990, the constitutional issues, and the possibility of government
mandated genetic monitoring or screening. The field of genetics
offers the promise of unearthing the causes of a wide range of
mysterious diseases and potentially finding their cures. Genetic
screening and monitoring will play a large role in the application of
these new findings. While these technologies offer great promise for
the future of medicine, and the eradication of certain genetically
linked diseases, until there are cures for persons with the faulty
genes, such knowledge can lead to anxious preoccupation with the
ever present disease potential within, and discrimination by
employers, insurers, governmental agencies, and health care
providers without. Given these unpleasant results of genetic
screening or monitoring, it is important to assert the individual's
right not to know.
[W]hen it comes to being tested for a genetic predisposition to diseases
that have no real cures and whose date of onset cannot be predicted,
there are basically two types of people. There are want-to-knowers
and there are avoiders.''
Nearly five years ago, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's
disease. This terrible illness has proceeded to destroy my father, leaving
only a hollow shell where a man once was. His case is possibly one of early
*Law Clerk for the Honorable Morton I. Greenberg, Judge, United States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit. J.D., Yale Law School, 1997; B.A., summa cum laude, College of
William and Mary, 1994.
'Charles Siebert, The DNA We've Been Dealt, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 17, 1995, (Magazine), at 50,
52 (quoting Barbara Biesecker, co-director of National Institute of Health's genetic
counseling program).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ilmed13&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Genetic Screening and the Right Not to Know
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