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45 Loy. L. Rev. 287 (1999)
New Genetic Technologies: New Options, New Hope, and New Challenges

handle is hein.journals/loyolr45 and id is 299 raw text is: THE NEW GENETIC TECHNOLOGIES: NEW OPTIONS, NEW HOPE, AND NEW CHALLENGES Mary Z. Pelias* Margaret M. DeAngelis** I. INTRODUCTION The drive and desire to have healthy children is as old as humankind. While child-bearing is generally anticipated with hope and experienced with satisfaction, some individuals and couples are persistently thwarted in their efforts to create and nurture their own offspring. A significant number of these per- sons are threatened by their own legacies of hereditary diseases and disorders, and they are therefore hesitant, if not unwilling, to risk conceiving a child that might be born to a life of limited prospects, pain, or even death. Over the course of this century the practice of medicine and the expansion of biotechnology have cooperated in defining genetic problems and risks and in treat- ing patients who are frustrated in their attempts to conceive and bear healthy children.1 The result of these efforts is now an impressive armamentarium of tests for predicting whether a couple, an embryo, or a fetus is at risk for genetic problems that significantly decrease, or even extinguish, the chances for in- fants and children to enjoy good health and normal growth. Concomitant with the expansion of medical and reproduc- tive technologies, an array of questions in law and ethics has emerged that examine the relationships of persons who interact in the arenas of the new reproductive technologies, medical ge- netics, and genetic counseling. These relationships include the interactions of physicians and their patients as well as interac- * Professor of Genetics, Louisiana State University Medical Center, New Orleans. B.S., Tulane University, 1963; Ph.D., Tulane University, 1970; J.D., Loyola University, 1989. ** Candidate for Ph.D., Neuroscience Center of Excellence, Louisiana State Univer- sity Medical Center, New Orleans. B.A., Clark University, 1986; M.S., Medical College of Virginia, 1993. 1. See, e.g., LYNN B. JORDE. JOHN C. CAREY, MICHAEL J. BAmsHAD & RAYMOND L. WHrrE, MEDICAL GENETICS (Mosby 2d ed. 1999); see also SHERMAN ELIAS & GEORGE J. AN- NAS, REPRODUCTIVE GENETICS & THE LAw (1987). 287