Huntington's Disease and Its Ethics
In “Genetics and Reproductive Risk: Can having children be immoral,”
L.M Purdy discusses the notion that the recent advances in
reproductive technology impose a moral obligation on individuals to
prevent the birth of “affected” babies that will not have a “minimally
satisfying life.” There are, however, several assumptions that the
author makes in reaching the conclusion that having “affected”
children is immoral.
The author makes the claim that people with Huntington’s disease are
unlikely to live a minimally satisfying life. It is known however,
that Huntington’s disease does not take any affect until 40-50 years
of age. Thus, those 40-50 years can easily be lived the same, without
the affects of the disease, as those individuals who are not affected
with Huntington’s disease. Just as those without the disease have a
satisfying life before the age of 50 so can those with Huntington’s.
Thus, there whole life is not doomed to be unsatisfying. If
questioned, many individuals would chose only 40-50 of a “good,
disease free” life than no life at all. When the author states that is
unacceptable to accept the risk of inheriting this disease with the
consent of the future child, the author fails to recognize that
essentially all actions performed by the surrogate mother are done
without consent. This includes drinking alcohol and smoking. While
these behaviors are harmful in large amounts, they are not monitored
by a third party nor have proven to cause enough damage in small
amounts so the life of the child would be unsatisfying. Thus, the
mother is accepting a risk on behalf of another, yet wh...
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... beliefs of society. If society imposed a law that it was immoral to
have children if you are extremely poor because u can not provide for
them and the child’s life wont be satisfying, one could argue that
with a little time the mother could move out of poverty and thus have
a “good” life, or that the child may find life satisfying without much
beyond basic necessities.
The author claims that mandatory testing will be beneficial because it
can help produce healthy children, yet assumes that all pregnant women
at risk will get tested. If testing becomes mandatory many woman who
avoid testing, either out of the fear of knowing if they have the
disease or that they will pressured into terminating the pregnancy,
many woman may avoid prenatal care all together, thus imposing more
health risks on the fetus and the mother.
explains that the cost of having a child is much more of a burden for the women of the
Secondly, The health of the mother, body of physical disorders of the body. The major reason that abortion should not be banned is for preventing transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) from mother to infant during pregnancy “reduce maternal morbidity and mortality” (Rudolph Gurtovnik, 2008, p.28) it is the big problem that the government has to solve and spent a lot of budget to treat all of these people. Some women feel that they have not the economic resources to take care a HIV child. A HIV status may also the cause women to reject their pregnancy. Some women need to restrict their incomes for accessing on a meditation and treatment to family members’ HIV infection. On the other hands, a pregnancy woman also has a negative impact to her health HIV women access abortion because they intentionally choose not to have a child and also fear that their pregnancy would lead to both mother and child poor health and death.
Huntington's disease is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder. It is passed on to children from one or both parents (though two parents with Huntington's is extraordinarily rare) in an autosomal dominant manner. This is different from autosomal recessive disorder, which requires two altered genes (one from each parent) to inherit the disorder.
Huntington’s disease is named after George Huntington. This disease genetically is an inherited disorder that damages the mind and nervous system. This may affect actions of the body for example like movement, the ability to reason, awareness, and thinking and judgment. It can also affect their behavior. The word genetic is that the disorder is delivered on by each generation of offspring by special codes called genes(Patient.Co.Uk, 2011). Genes are relocated from a parent to offspring and is held to decide some characteristics of the children (Patient.Co.Uk, 2011).
There are many things missing in this paper, first of you start your paper with this quoting “(Everyone at one point has said the words “It’s my body, I can do whatever I want to it if it’s not affecting others)” I don’t know if you support that idea but in my view I found it very wrong, in other words people can say is my body I can decide not to take a shower for the rest of my life on Earth, I decide not to brush my teeth, I decide to take a gun to class and if anyone piss me of i can shoot them, the problem over here is if we all decide to do whatever I don’t think we will live in a peaceful nation anymore, and the question is How do you know is not affecting others around you? The writer can best convince me of why they support the idea of birth control, the writer making it seem as if Birth Control is the only method to prevent pregnancy is not there are many other ways to prevent
The diseases that exist in our world are enough to make medicine and testing the only option of hope in times of need. People grow up happy and healthy, only to be diagnosed, in their middle age, with an adult-onset disease. These diseases only become a burden as the victim gets older. Some commonly known ones are Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s disease. There is no cure or treatment for adult-onset diseases like this. Knowing that the victims have these diseases written in their DNA from the moment they were born leads to an interesting argument. Several communities argue about whether parents or guardians should have the right to test their children for these diseases. There are many arguments, however, that stem from the social and ethical aspect of the effects it could have on the kids.
Often young women have these problems even though they have good values. The problem is they are not well informed.Parents don’t talk about this because “the girl is too young to learn about this themes”. This is a really sad mentality because unfortunately young girls are more in danger of a sexual abuse or have unprotected sex because they don’t realize the consequences of this action. So now we have to think. For example, If a poor person can’t support his or her family of 4 people. what would do the family if one of the girls has a baby?. The operation that the mother needs for giving birth and the medical assistance is too expensive. According to the author ,“many people received public assistance at some point, Those who worked usually in low-wage jobs made less than $10,000 in the years prior to the birth of the first child’’ . By focusing on what the author said we can assume that with some income you can support a little the birth of a child because the government is also helping you with medical assistance .But poor families that don’t work , and don’t qualify for this
In this paper, I will argue that genetic therapies should be allowed for diseases and disabilities that cause individuals pain, shorter life spans, and noticeable disadvantages in life. I believe this because everyone deserves to have the best starting place in life possible. That is, no one should be limited in their life due to diseases and disabilities that can be cured with genetic therapies. I will be basing my argument off the article “Gene Therapies and the Pursuit of a Better Human” by Sara Goering. One objection to genetic therapies is that removing disabilities and diseases might cause humans to lose sympathy towards others and their fragility (332).
Being a mother is a lifelong job that requires copious time, energy, and money. There are myriad different reasons in which a woman would consider getting an abortion. The decision is often tragic and painful for the mother. It is one of the biggest choices a woman will make. Many people have strong beliefs about abortion, and if a mother makes a decision that they do not agree with they sometimes turn against the mother, and enkindle egregious feelings about their decision for the rest of their life. Indeed a woman may not get an abortion for selfish reasons or out of convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living for the other members of the family. Additional intentions for having abortion include rape, financial difficulties, obligation by family members, or danger to the baby’s health (Roleff
Gestational surrogacy, especially when it involves commercial surrogates, challenges the status quo in the ethical theory of reproduction, because with this technology the process of producing a child can no longer remain a private matter. Now a public contract exists between two parties, the couple and the surrogate ...
...point as well. The essay knows that before a woman is pregnant, that even being willing to have sex she is taking a chance. Health wise, society does not hold a concern to how abortion emotionally and physically damages a person, their only reasoning given to what causes their pain after abortion is guilt, which seems to be stereotypical. The case of Roe v. wade holds a logical point by being optional to consider abortion, and if so, will only be safely done through the first trimester of pregnancy to avoid, health issues. My perspective to oppose abortion is similarly relative on the analysis of health reasoning, but my views are also opinionated by the environment I grew upon by. Each abortion guideline is openly acceptable to live by, but the moral of the perspectives carries on what our society as a free citizen lies between: healthcare and freedom of speech.
While surrogacy is a risky occupation, Prudy believes that women should be able to make that choice for themselves. Especially since in our daily lives we all engage in risky behaviors, such as driving a car or consuming alcohol. As a result, there is little reason to limit a woman’s choice in participating in surrogacy. However, Purdy admits that the current unregulated approach is unacceptable and legislations need to be endorsed in ordered to make the practice safer, since surrogacy will most likely continue to occur whether it is regulated or
This paper presents an ethical analysis of the mandatory newborn HIV testing law enacted in New York State. The law was passed as an effort to decrease maternal transmission of HIV, by treating infants born to HIV positive mothers immediately after birth with AZT. Newborn testing was promoted by the legislative and medical community following the overwhelmingly positive response from HIV infected pregnant women who were given AZT in the ACTG 076 clinical trials. Pregnant mothers who were given AZT had a markedly lower transmission rate than mothers who had not received it. This paper examines this newborn testing policy from a Utilitarian perspective to ascertain if the goals of the policy are feasible. The potential advantages, as well as the failures of using this policy are discussed. Implementations to improve the policy are also presented.
This is unlike the case for the rich, who can travel to other places where they can procure safe abortions. In addition, the prohibition of abortion often defeats the purpose of bringing up a child. A child is often considered a fruit of love and passion among two consenting adults. However, in cases where a woman feels that she does not want or does not have the capacity to bring up a child, it goes without saying more children would be brought up in situations and homes that are less than loving. Indeed, the prohibition would result in unwanted children, which are often the most tragic cases in the society (Norgren et al, 2001).
While using contraception things could go wrong and if these women are on birth control that would be the extra push that could save them from having a child when they are not ready. Lori M. Huhter explains why gender equality is so important as people get older. Huhter talks about how there should not be set roles in the house when it comes to working, Lori M. Huhter states “The "women in development" perspective argues that gender equality is indeed essential for development, since a country that discriminates against half of its population simply cannot utilize its full potential.” Huhter later states “The goal of gender equality, in turn, rests on a foundation built by improving female educational attainment, and not only because of improvements in literacy: education brings self-esteem, self-confidence, and problem-solving abilities, all of which enhance one 's potential as well as possible contributions to household, community, and society.” Even though I agree that women and males should learn more about gender equality, I do not think it has a great impact on women’s rights when it has to deal with contraception. Meanwhile, Margaret Sanger discusses how race is tied into family planning. Sanger argues that because back in the day the lower class was forced to work in factories and have a multiple amount of kids, it made a big impact to the world population. Now causing overpopulation. By sending over birth control to the lower class in these poor countries the over population rate would decrease and the lives of these people would be better. “If families could not choose the timing and the pacing of their children, she argued, then they could not reduce or eliminate the social conditions that fed into the cycles of poverty, disease, and neglect so readily apparent in tenements and slums in the inner