The Ethical and Legal Issues in DNA Parentage Testing
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Huang, Po-Ching
Abstract
Parentage testing determines whether two individuals have a biological parent-child relationship. British geneticist Alec Jeffreys developed the technique of DNA fingerprinting used for human identification in 1985. With the advance of techniques in molecular biology, rapid, sensitive, and reliable DNA testing has become available. The most advanced and accurate method for parentage testing is using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to analyze short tandem repeats (STRs) polymorphism.
In the human genome, there are some repetitive and short DNA fragments called short tandem repeats (STRs), which have the characteristic of length polymorphism. Through polymerase chain reaction, a sufficient amount of products can be generated by repeating the specific DNA fragments. By identifying the variations in the number of STRs, the relationships between samples can be confirmed.
This thesis provides a brief review of DNA parentage testing and introduces ethical/ legal issues in clinical practice. DNA parentage testing may have psychosocial impacts on tested individuals and their family members. Therefore, four major topics including respect for autonomy and privacy, substitute decision-making, investigations of parent-child relationship and related legal problems are discussed. Ethical and legal reflections on the current situation and on future practice are also put forward at the same time.
Subjects
parentage testing
polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
short tandem repeats (STRs)
ethical and legal issues
Type
thesis
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