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Ethical Dilemmas Regarding Genetic Counseling
Ethical Dilemmas Regarding Genetic Counselling
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Ethical Dilemmas Regarding Genetic Counselling
Dwarfism
In the first scenario, it is the counselor who is facing an ethical dilemma. The parents have a clear stance that they will abort a dwarf child or a child with the traits of achondroplasia. They have a logic that they lost a child due to this disorder and they do not want to feel the same pain twice. The counselor knows that the baby the woman is expecting is a dwarf child and it has fifty percent chances of being attacked by the fatal disease whereas he might survive as many such children do. If I were at the place of the counselor, I would have explained the case in detail to the parents and would have suggested to welcome the child if it has one of the two genes healthy and thus fifty percent chances of having a healthy and normal child. Explaining the situation might save a life, but simply informing that the child is not as per their expectations might kill the baby and they might not have a child again.
Paternity
The couple who wants to have a healthy child unaffected from cystic fibrosis (CF). They already have a sick child, but the counselor finds out that the next child might not be affected by cystic fibrosis (CF) because the man in the couple is free from the traits of that disease and it is another man who is the father of the affected child. The issue is that who the counselor reveal the truth before? If I were the counselor, I would have consulted the woman first of all and would have asked if her husband knew or would tolerate after knowing her physical relationship with the other person (Ulrich, & Grady, 2018). If the case were that he neither knew nor would tolerate, I would have consulted only with the woman and the biological father of the child to inform them of the risk they were having. The words of famous nurse ethicist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Mary K. Walton explain the reason of my action that for a healthcare professional “The basic questions are ‘What is the right thing to do?’ and ‘What makes it so? (Walton, & Barnsteiner, 2012).
References
Ulrich, C. M., & Grady, C. (Eds.). (2018). Moral distress in the health professions. Berlin: Springer.
Walton, M. K., & Barnsteiner, J. (2012). Patient-centered care. Quality and safety in nursing: A competency approach to improving outcomes, 67-89.
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