Family law and genetics.
Historically, family law has been constructed around a core of assumptions, for example, that the husband is the father; that upbringing shapes the destiny of the children; and that nothing is known about the health and reproductive future of the couple and their children. At the end of this century, however, given the pervasiveness of interest in genetics and knowledge about our genetic make-up, we may be moving to a culture of family law based on genetic evidence and not on behaviour/responsibility. Every week we are informed by news stories that another gene has been discovered that controls some aspect of human personality. It is expected that the entire sequence of the human genome will be mapped by 2005, identifying 100,000 separate genes.' The impact of the knowledge that this will bring is already being felt, and not only in family law. It is plain that the insurance industry is refusing to close its eyes to the genetic knowledge given by tests. Testing for cystic fibrosis (a debilitating respiratory condition affecting one in 1,000 children) carriers may already be taken 'over the counter' for around ?100. If both partners carry the gene, their offspring have a 25 per cent chance of being born with the disease. The spread of tests and the impact of their results are unlikely to be rejected. The Human Genetics Advisory Commission's suggestion in 1998 of a two-year moratorium on tests to indicate the risks of hereditary disease or illness was promptly rejected by the insurance industry.2 The insurance industry's impact on the use and spread of such testing cannot be over-estimated; one should recall that for many years AIDS testing was avoided, even for the most neutral of reasons, because it was a fact that the majority of insurers would refuse to insure a person who had taken a test, regardless of the reason and the outcome. The insurance industry's insistence on receiving the results of any genetic tests taken may well inhibit their use for a while to come. In the area of family law, genetic knowledge impacts in many ways, of which only a few can be examined here. For example, an early embryo may be examined before implantation to discover whether it has certain genetic disorders. This 'preimplantation genetic diagnosis'3 (PGD) is carried out as a part of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment for those who are at risk of passing on a serious inherited disorder to their children. The egg of the woman and the sperm of the man are brought together in vitro and if the egg is successfully fertilised and becomes an embryo, it is examined when it has reached the stage of eight cells.