The Autism Project: Genetics and Bioethics
The possibility of a future prenatal genetic test for autism raises more than a few tough ethical questions. If such a test is developed, would people who learned that they might have an autistic child choose not to have that child—choose eugenic abortion? It is also true that people, knowing that they will have an autistic child, could start to learn how to care for their child earlier than most parents do and start to find the best therapies and therapies for their child.
And that is why the mention of “cure” and “autism” together evokes so much controversy, discussion, feeling, and more.
The reseach of The Autism Project of the Center for Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics and the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics focuses on autism “to investigate the reciprocal influences of social processes and biomedical research on the identity of neurobiological difference.”
The research of The Autism Project currently examines the “social evolution of autism identity” and the “role of educational and community advocacy groups” as well as tracking changes in the diagnostic criteria for autism and in studying how such “historical and social processes have shaped the scientific progress toward identifying autism as a disease and as a genetic condition.”
These are major research questions of The Autism Project:
- What ethical, legal and social issues are raised by genetic research on autism…..?
- How has genetic research on autism affected the perception of autism (including autism as an identity)……?
- What are the scientific and other reasons for seeking a genetic component to autism? What are the scientific, cultural and value assumptions contributing to the definitions of autism phenotypes and autism as a genetic condition?
- How do findings of genetic contributions to autism change perceptions of the treatments of the condition?
More tough questions that need not simply answers, but discussion, by researches and scientists, by autistics, by autism parents, and by our society.
1 opinion for The Autism Project: Genetics and Bioethics
Nissa Annakindt
Oct 14, 2006 at 10:11 am
I read somewhere that 90% of mothers pregnant with a Downs Syndrome child abort— often under pressure from doctors— even though there is a waiting list of people who want to adopt a Downs Syndrome child.
I’ve also read that in some circles there is hostility toward the parents of Downs Syndrome children because they could have aborted their ‘defective’ child but didn’t.
As a person with Asperger’s Syndrome who likes living, I hope they never come up with a prenatal test. It will simply cut down on the number of autistic children who survive to be born, and as the numbers go down, support services and research into autism will too. Perhaps the only research seen as necessary will be research into how to get the public to accept eugenic abortion.
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