{"id":518,"date":"2010-10-22T11:38:16","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T15:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=518"},"modified":"2010-10-22T11:39:26","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T15:39:26","slug":"the-genetic-freedom-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/birthmarked\/the-genetic-freedom-act\/","title":{"rendered":"The Genetic Freedom Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The law isn\u2019t really called that, but since I\u2019m already playing with fiction twists, changing the name is a satisfying place to start.\u00a0 The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gpo.gov\/fdsys\/pkg\/PLAW-110publ233\/pdf\/PLAW-110publ233.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008<\/a> says about what you might expect it would: that insurance companies and employers can\u2019t discriminate against anyone because of his or her genes.\u00a0 They can\u2019t demand genetic info about people, or their families, when they\u2019re deciding whom not to cover in policies or whom to employ.\u00a0 That\u2019s the real law here in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just too tempting, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_520\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:A-DNA,_B-DNA_and_Z-DNA.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-520\" class=\"size-full wp-image-520\" title=\"A-DNA, B-DNA, and Z-DNA\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/DNAforBlog.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"162\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-520\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A-DNA, B-DNA, and Z-DNA<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Imagine the reverse: that people have to register their DNA before they can work, vote, marry, or enter a hospital.\u00a0 Imagine if, at the airport, while you\u2019re taking off your shoes and exposing your personal effects to get through security, you also have to give a drop of blood so they can clear you in the genetic database.\u00a0 Better still, suppose you have a child who is genetically desirable, and the government wants your kid to experiment on while they try to find a cure for hemophilia, or sickle cell anemia, or cancer.\u00a0 Some wickedly awful fiction could happen.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not personally worried about people knowing my genes.\u00a0 Neither are the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.personalgenomes.org\/pgp10.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cPGP-10,\u201d<\/a> George Church and nine fellow scientists who released their personal genetic and medical data to the public as they launched the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.personalgenomes.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Personal Genome Project<\/a> in 2008.\u00a0 Over a thousand volunteers have now contributed their info to the project in the belief that doing so could\u00a0 \u201cpromote human welfare through the advancement of scientific and medical discovery\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.personalgenomes.org\/whyparticipate.html\" target=\"_blank\">personalgenomes.org<\/a>). \u00a0I wonder if it&#8217;s a coincidence that the PGP-10&#8217;s personal data went online just a few months after the Genetic Freedom Act was passed.<\/p>\n<p>So, as I consider ideas for Book 3 in the <em>Birthmarked <\/em>trilogy, I can\u2019t help noticing I\u2019ll be playing on people\u2019s fears about genetic discrimination, and possibly even adding to the misconceptions about how genes can be used for evil.\u00a0 But I give myself permission anyway, because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s genetic information itself that is the danger: it\u2019s uncontrolled, corrupt government that\u2019s the danger.<\/p>\n<p>And in real life, we\u2019re safe from that.\u00a0 So far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The law isn\u2019t really called that, but since I\u2019m already playing with fiction twists, changing the name is a satisfying place to start.\u00a0 The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 says about what you might expect it would: that insurance companies and employers can\u2019t discriminate against anyone because of his or her genes.\u00a0 They can\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthmarked"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":522,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}