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What is Huntington's disease? a hereditary disease which develops in adulthood and ends in dementia.
- Article
-Eash offspring has a 50% chance of inheriting the condition.
-Not a recessive disorder.
-Testing for Huntington's disease became available with the discovery of the HD gene on one tip of chromosome four.
-Usually older people who decide to get tested.
-Women who said that prenatal testing was OK said that they would be reluctant to inform their employer or insurer.
-About one quarter of the group would choose to terminate the pregnancy if they found out their baby was positive for HD. However, I think that this is an eratic behavior and the child can still live their life to the fullest.
Hypothetical Case
A woman who is eight weeks pregnant discovers that her partner is at 50% risk of developing Huntington's disease. He is not interested in pursuing predictive testing. The woman is adamant that she does not want a child who will develop Huntington's disease in later life, and she requests a prenatal test.
There is a 1 in 4 chance that the prenatal test will show that the fetus has the mutation for Huntington's disease, and therefore the test also presymptomatically diagnoses the father. Such prenatal requests highlight the uncertainty of the legal position taken by the international guidelines. Cases like this pose considerable ethical and legal dilemmas for clinicians. Does the right of the pregnant mother to know the status of her fetus outweigh the right of the father at risk to not know his genetic status?
I believe so because the mother is the one carrying the baby and she does not necessarily have to tell the father the results which means he will not have to know if he has it.
4 comments:
I really like the background on prenatal testing for Huntingtons. You have some good arguments for pro-screening. I might suggest you also consider some responses to the 'con' arguments. I look forward to seeing your debate reflection, as we both have the same argument topic!
Nice job Daniel. Your arguments are very insightful and i like how you have your blog organized in a way where its very easy to read and understand.
I completely agree with you on the mother has the right to know if her child has the possibility of her child developing Huntingtons disease because she will be prepared for if her child will develop the symptoms and she will not be in complet shock when her child shows symptoms!
On your debate I think it was a good chioce to put the sources of your information under what info u got from that source. The hypothetical case is also very useful. I think it gives people a good perspective of what chioces are availible for a mother. One thing you might want to add to your debate is what your oppenent stated for the cons of testing for huntingston disease. As for the whole blog you might want to vary the color on your words with not only the titles but the paragraphs and info since most of your information is on a plan white background. Anyways,overall I think your blog is very organized.
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