geneticscreeningh

4. Synthesis and extensions :
 * Rapp draws our attention to many constituencies and voices in the arena or reproductive interventions, in contrast to the dominance of white, male experts and a medical model: "Until we locate and listen to the discourses of women who encounter and interpret a new reproductive technology in their own lives we cannot go beyond a medical model." Medical model = individual risks, benefits and choices (aided by dominant metaphors of human perfectibility and individuals holding within them their potential) vs. situated, social responses, e.g. social support for the disabled, Down syndrome support groups.

>> Genetic purification thought-piece by student in 2006
 * Genetic purification—Consider this strong proposition: "I have heard some argue that prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion would reduce society’s burden in having to give special care for very disabled people and thus free funds for general health care, education, etc. for the mildly disabled. I have also heard the strong counter-proposition that such “genetic purification” in practice works against tolerance for the usual range of variation and measures to care for the abnormal. To understand the logic of this proposition consider an analogy: The health and fitness boom of the 1980s seems to have reduced tolerance for plump, “overweight” people. Those who have kept themselves trim tend to think that overweight people ought also to be able to do something about their figures. In the light of this analogy, Rapp's articles, your own experience, and research into the published literature, discuss the contention about “genetic purification."

5. Connections and resources
 * Taussig, K. S. et al. (2003) “Flexible Eugenics: Technologies of the Self in the Age of Genetics”. Pp. 58-76 in Alan Goodman, Deborah Heath and Susan Lindee, eds. Genetic Nature/ Culture:  Anthropology and Science Beyond the Two Culture Divide.  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, http://anthropology.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/2473/Flexible_Eugenics_2001.pdf


 * [|Genes and Human Disease], World Health Organization

>> Sequence of potential developments (Yoxen):  prenatal screening & selective abortion -> somatic cell therapy -> germ cell (&early embryo) modification -> enhancement of specific genetic traits -> enhancement of more complex attributes. >> Although, in Yoxen’s view, there is no absolute technological inevitability in this sequence, each step would make the next more feasible. Yoxen proposes that the public should discuss the implications and so individuals can make choices that enhance their freedom, self-esteem and sense of responsible reproductive behavior. (How else could limits be implemented that check commodification and technological development? What contradicts these social determinisms?) >> Public discussion of science does not necessarily mean direct involvement in technicalities, because public discussion that affects the possible directions of science does not stop with technical issues -- the gay liberation movement in the 70s made it possible for people to lobby hard for more AIDS research in the 80s while they probably would not have been listened to a decade earlier. Scientists who invoke fear of the public’s direct involvement in technicalities may be suspected of having an interest in limiting public involvement or influence in political decision-making concerning the direction of science.
 * Yoxen, E. “Unnatural selection/Gene Therapy.” In Unnatural Selection?, Pp. 157-173. London: Heinemann, 1986.

5b. Online forum, through which students can provide suggestions and resources for revising the chapter 5c. Adaptation of themes from the chapter to students' own projects of learning about or engaging with biology in its social context: Suggestions for how to do that:
 * Design a forum that brings out multiple voices in your audience so as to enhance the critical thinking everyone does about your topic concerning biology in its social context.