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Beyond Harms and Benefits: Rethinking Duties to Disclose Misattributed Parentage
Author(s) -
Garrett Jeremy R.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
hastings center report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1552-146X
pISSN - 0093-0334
DOI - 10.1002/hast.472
Subject(s) - subject (documents) , deference , action (physics) , epistemology , engineering ethics , sociology , law , political science , computer science , philosophy , library science , physics , quantum mechanics , engineering
In this issue of the Hastings Center Report, Amulya Mandava, Joseph Millum, and Benjamin E. Berkman revisit an old conundrum—whether to disclose incidental findings of misattributed parentage—in light of new developments in genomic sequencing that will make that conundrum both more complex and more common. While the authors’ defense of nondisclosure as the appropriate default action in genomic research aligns with prior thinking and practice, their exploration of philosophical foundations is refreshingly rigorous and developed. The final product of their analysis—an applied taxonomy of the types of harms and benefits that can result from disclosure of misattributed parentage—is an important contribution to the literature on this subject and worthy of serious consideration by genomic researchers and bioethicists alike. Despite these virtues, I am struck by the authors’ deference to the traditional assumption that disclosure ethics can be adequately understood and appreciated within a purely consequentialist framework .