One possible ethical issue involved with genetic testing would be that it leads to early intervention in the pregnancy. Once the mother finds out if their child has a deadly disease or some other undesired trait, this may lead them to want to abort their child. Ethically speaking, many people don’t find abortions morally right and knowing early on whether or not their child has a bad gene could cause a lot of distraught for the mom and her decision to abort or keep the child.
A second ethical issue that could arise from genetic testing would be that it might be hard to interpret the information about the child through facts and online readings. If a mother decides to abort her child due to a gene mutation she doesn’t consider positive, she isn’t giving this child a chance to possibly fight it and live longer than expected. There’s not a chance given if the mother takes it away. Lastly, another ethical issue regarding genetic testing would be that it could hurt the mother’s attitude towards her pregnancy.
Some mothers may not be emotionally sound enough to handle the information if it may be bad and that can take a toll on the overall pregnancy. One bias Diamond could have would be the fact that he’s Jewish. ATA-Cash seems to be more prevalent in Jewish communities and seeing that Diamond’s Jewish this could make the content of his article more geared towards how much it affects Jewish descendants. A second bias or baggage that the author could have is that he’s a male so that could make it a little harder for him to understand or comprehend how the woman might feel during this time.
This impacted the article because I think that when he talks about abortions and the options after it’s more matter of fact than sentimental. I think if a woman had written this maybe her nurturing side would have been more prominent than Diamond’s views. Lastly another bias I see Diamond express in his article is that he’s older. Think this impacts the article because he has a lot more facts and explanations that he has gained over time so it helps him make his point and outline what he has to say.
One possible reason the ATA-Cash allele still remains prevalent in certain populations even though they no longer live in ghetto-like environments is because the gene could have been mutated to fit into another environment. Humans and mutations are forever evolving and adapting to this world so the gene for ATA-Cash could have changed. Another possible reason would be that carriers could pass down the recessive allele to their child, which could give them the trait for ATA-Cash.
