Heredity and Hope: The Case for Genetic Screening

by Ruth Schwartz Cowan

Overview

The secrets locked in our genes are being revealed, and we find ourselves both enthused and frightened about what that portends. We look forward to curing disease and alleviating suffering—for our children as well as for ourselves—but we also worry about delving too deeply into the double helix. Abuses perpetrated by eugenicists—from involuntary sterilization to murder—continue to taint our feelings about genetic screening.

Yet, as Ruth Schwartz Cowan reveals, modern genetic screening has been practiced since 1960, benefiting millions of women and children all over the world. She persuasively argues that new forms of screening—prenatal, newborn, and carrier testing—are both morally right and politically acceptable. Medical genetics, built on the desire of parents and physicians to reduce suffering and increase personal freedom, not on the desire to “improve the human race,” is in fact an entirely different enterprise from eugenics.

Cowan’s narrative moves from an account of the interwoven histories of genetics and eugenics in the first half of the twentieth century, to the development of new forms of genetic screening after mid-century. It includes illuminating chapters on the often misunderstood testing programs for sickle cell anemia, and on the world’s only mandated premarital screening programs, both of them on the island of Cyprus.

Neither minimizing the difficulty of the choices that modern genetics has created for us nor fearing them, Cowan bravely and compassionately argues that we can improve the quality of our own lives and the lives of our children by using the modern science and technology of genetic screening responsibly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674024243
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/20/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Ruth Schwartz Cowan is Professor of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

• Introduction

1. Many Varieties of Beautiful Inheritance
2. Eugenics and the Genealogical Fallacy
3. Pronatal Motives and Prenatal Diagnosis
4. No Matter What! This Has to Stop!
5. Genetic Screening and Genocidal Claims
6. Parents, Politicians, Physicians, and Priests

• Conclusion
• Further Reading
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Passionate, well-researched, and controversial, Heredity and Hope provides important historical illumination on an issue which activists and analysts from many perspectives will be eager to address.

Markel Howard

Elegantly written and thoroughly researched, Ruth Schwartz Cowan's wisdom shines forth on every page of this critically important book.
--(Dr. Howard Markel, author of When Germs Travel)

Dr. Howard Markel

Elegantly written and thoroughly researched, Ruth Schwartz Cowan's wisdom shines forth on every page of this critically important book.

— Dr. Howard Markel, author of When Germs Travel

Daniel Kevles

Ruth Cowan, an unabashed supporter of genetic screening and prenatal diagnosis, explains how they have enabled parents at risk to have children free of debilitating or deadly genetic diseases. She is a masterful and altogether convincing guide. --(Daniel Kevles, Yale University)

Arthur Caplan

Cowanadeptly and persuasively shows why the normative foundation for contemporary genetic screening is sound, why it should not be tarred with the brush of racist eugenics and where the real challenges and conundrums lie for those involved in screening now and in the future. --(Arthur Caplan, Director, Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania)

Editorial Reviews

Ruth Cowan, an unabashed supporter of genetic screening and prenatal diagnosis, explains how they have enabled parents at risk to have children free of debilitating or deadly genetic diseases. She is a masterful and altogether convincing guide.

Daniel Kevles

Modern healers may claim science to be the foundation of their work, but the key is, in fact, persuasion: to heed advice, to push and persevere, to hope. As the genome is further dissected and better understood, no family of diseases warrants more genuine hope for successful management than genetic conditions. Cowan understands that we must all share that hope for the campaign to be successful.

Nature - Hugh Young Rienhoff Jr.

Passionate, well-researched, and controversial, Heredity and Hope provides important historical illumination on an issue which activists and analysts from many perspectives will be eager to address.

Rayna Rapp

Cowanadeptly and persuasively shows why the normative foundation for contemporary genetic screening is sound, why it should not be tarred with the brush of racist eugenics and where the real challenges and conundrums lie for those involved in screening now and in the future.

Arthur Caplan

Elegantly written and thoroughly researched, Ruth Schwartz Cowan's wisdom shines forth on every page of this critically important book.

Dr. Howard Markel

Modern healers may claim science to be the foundation of their work, but the key is, in fact, persuasion: to heed advice, to push and persevere, to hope. As the genome is further dissected and better understood, no family of diseases warrants more genuine hope for successful management than genetic conditions. Cowan understands that we must all share that hope for the campaign to be successful.
— Hugh Young Rienhoff Jr.

Nature