What are the implications of genetic information?
Galewicz, Włodzimierz.
Przeglad Lekarski 66(1-2): 58-60
2009
ISSN/ISBN: 0033-2240 PMID: 19485258 Document Number: 629012
The paper I discuss sense that information obtained through genetic tests has for a given person. First, I distinguish between the theoretical and the practical sense of genetic information. Next, within the latter I make a further distinction between a practical medical sense of information about a given person's genetic characteristics, which has a view to the avoidance or treatment of illnesses that are conditioned by genetic factors and a strategic practical sense, which allows a given person to choose an appropriate life strategy. Then, I note that in addition to the above theoretical and practical senses, genetic information can also have other senses, which do not fit into the above scheme. I call these senses existential, and distinguish between emotional-existential and conscious-existential senses. I conclude that in view of the diversity and ambivalence of the senses of concrete genetic information, the decision about whether to perform genetic tests should be left to the person himself. In the case of minors, who are not yet fully capable of making such a decision, it should be postponed until they reach adulthood.