Genetic counseling preserves the right to parental autonomy. Genetic counselors have an ethical obligation of respecting the beliefs, feelings, and decisions of clients, as well as guiding them to make informed choices (National Society of Genetic Counsellors, 2003). The counselors have a responsibility of providing relevant facts and information to parents, together with alternatives and consequences to their choices. Furthermore, the counselors also have an ethical obligation of safeguarding the decisions, made by parents regarding the genetics of their children (Counselling and Education Programs, 2003). This article expounds on the fact that parental autonomy has led to the deprivation of a child’s right to an open future.
Children’s rights vary from dependency rights to rights-in-trust among others. According to Joel Feinberg (2008), a child’s rights-in-trust are preserved for when the child is an adult and capable of making sound decisions. In most genetic cases, parents violate these rights hence making life-long genetic choices on behalf of the child. This case is dominant in families that have hereditary deafness, whereby parents prefer having deaf children rather than hearing ones (Davis, 1997). Deafness is viewed as a culture into which children are integrated without their own will. A choice by parents to alter an unborn child to fit into this culture will cause moral harm to the unborn child (Brock, 2005).
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Every child has a right to an open future, whereby they should be allowed to exist for their sakes, which might be different from their parents’ expectations (Davis, 1997). Denying a child this right robs them of the chance to live life and achieve their own goals. When children are born into a culture that they are unable to walk away from when they reach the age of making personal decisions such as Deafness, they are confined into that culture and may never experience their true potential in a different culture (Davis, 1997). More so, they are left to deal with the challenges of that culture which include limited career and relational choices, as well as poor reading and writing skills among others. Although parental autonomy in genetic counseling is upheld, the counselors should not aid the parents in taking away a child’s autonomy (Davis, 1997).
References
Brock, D. (2005). The Non-Identity Problem and Genetic Harms. Bioethics , 9 (3/4), 272.
Counselling and Education Programs. (2003). A Report on the Ethical, Social and Legal Implications of Genetic Screening (p. 56). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Davis, D. (1997). Genetic Dilemmas and the Child's Rights to an Open Future. Hastings Center Report , 27 (2), 7-15.
Feinberg, J. (2008). The Child's Right to an Open Future. In W. Aiken & H. Lafollette, Whose Child? Children Rights, Parental Authority, and State Power (pp. 124-53). Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co.
National Society of Genetic Counsellors. (2003). Code of Ethics. In D. Bartels, B. LeRoy & A. Caplan, Prescribing Our Future: Ethical Challenges in Genetic Counselling (pp. 169-71). New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
