Genetic Testing: Accounts of Autonomy, Responsibility and Blame [Hardcover]

Advances in molecular genetics have led to the increasing availability of genetic testing for a variety of inherited disorders. While this new knowledge presents many obvious health benefits to prospective individuals and their families it also raises complex ethical and moral dilemmas for families as well as genetic professionals.

This book explores the ways in which genetic testing generates not only probabilities of potential futures, but also enjoys new forms of social, individual and professional responsibility. Concerns about confidentiality and informed consent involving children, the assessment of competence and maturity, the ability to engage in shared decision-making through acts of disclosure and choice, are just some of the issues that are examined in detail.

1. Introduction  2. Genetic Testing: Technology in Context  3. Neo-liberalism and the New Genetics  4. Rhetorical Discourse Analysis  5. Personal Genomics and the Media  6. Family Accounts of Genetic Responsibility  7. Accounts of Genetic Testing in the Clinic  8. Professional Accounts of Ethical Challenges in Prenatal Clinic  9. Conclusion

Firmly grounded in empirical data, this book critically engages with the relational, moral and ethical issues surrounding genetic testing in contemporary society. Competing accounts of autonomy, responsibility and blame  by families, by professionals and in the public sphere  are analysed rigorously within a discourse-rhetorical framework, paying particular attention to the situated management of risks of knowing and risks of disclosure.US? 2011 Michael Arribas-Ayllon, Srikant Sarangi, and Angus Clarke