The Human Genome Project: Was It Ethical?

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the major issues and concerns that have arisen out of the Human Genome Project, noting that the concerns within the scientific community differ markedly from those in the public arena. In attempting to address the question of whether the project was ethical or not, the paper takes the position that, like any other scientific endeavor, the attempt to map the human genome does not belong in the domain of ethics and is not amenable to such analysis. Questions of ethicality, it suggests, apply to the ways in which information is used rather than to the activity of gathering the information itself. The paper proceeds to discuss the desirability (rather than the ethicality) of mapping the human genome and concludes in favor of the endeavor.

Outline:
Introduction
Issues Within the Scientific Community
Issues in the Public Arena
Discussion
Conclusion
Bibliography

From the Paper:

"Launched in the late 1980's, the Human Genome Project was an ambitious attempt, involving several nations, to map and sequence the approximately 3 billion nucleotides in the human genome (Gilbert 1992: 85). The genome is the entire set of genes contained in the 23 sets of chromosomes that make up the cells of the human organism. The goal of the project is to identify the precise function of each of the genes in the human genome, or, put conversely, to find the precise location in the genome of every single known human trait or characteristic (Lee 1991: 1). This makes it the largest-scale undertaking in the history of the biological sciences. One of the major benefits of mapping the human genome is that scientists will be able to identify the genes responsible for the more than 3000 known genetic diseases (Keller 1992: 294)."

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