Law professor Albert Scherr of Franklin Pierce University has been awarded a two-year grant from NIH to study genetic evidence and its relationship to the Constitution. In an era in which knowledge of the human genome is growing exponentially, the study will have particular relevance for everyone who has a family history of genetic conditions or disabilities.

Let’s connect the dots:

• Every state has a statute that allows police to collect genetic name-tag information from certain groups of people.
• Seven states take DNA information from all people arrested, even if not convicted.
• There are proposals in some states to build a database by taking samples from every child born.
• Gathering a person’s DNA without their knowledge is not illegal.

And what will governments do with all that genetic information? Scherr says the data collection raises thorny issues — including the possible depersonalization of groups of people.

“You can get to genetic exceptionism, over-determining who people are,” he said. “There can be the thought that we only need your genes to know all about you, who you are. We can forget about one’s sense of one’s self, that being part of what makes us who we are. We could lose our sense of humanity.”

From Seacoastonline.com

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 3:01 pm and is filed under genetics, law, privacy, public attitudes, public policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post