Citic Xiangya Hospital Ethical Discussion Of Genetic Services

Genetic diseases are caused by gene mutations or chromosomal aberrations. Although they are not necessarily passed on from generation to generation, the symptoms tend to be very serious once suffered. The genetic disease is an important factor affecting the quality of the population and the main cause of birth defects, including chromosomal diseases, single gene disorders, polygenic disease, and mitochondrial disease. As we all know, family planning and prenatal and postnatal care for basic national policy in our country, however, because the fundamental causes of genetic disease is a genetic material defects with no effective means of treatment to correct those gene or chromosomal defects, so the main method is to use appropriate medical technology to prevent the birth of children with genetic disease in order to reduce or even eliminate genetic disease. Genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis are one of the important means of control of genetic disease, people with genetic disease need to know the treatment and prognosis of their own genetic disease as well as other aspects, they are more concerned about fertility risks. The purpose of genetic counseling is to allow couples to be fully informed of the risk of genetic disease and provide some valuable guidance and practical measures for them to make reproductive choices:prenatal diagnosis, selective abortion, artificial insemination or oocyte donation for in vitro fertilization, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, etc. Each choice involves relevant medical ethical principles and they are not only with the existence in common, but also with its particularity. At the same time regardless of which technology they choose, there is some controversy on ethical principles due to differences in race, faith and cultural backgrounds, which needs to be resolved and improved. Therefore, adequate genetic counseling and informed consent process and respect for individual autonomy is critical to the implementation of the clinical ethics process. The ethical guidance of rules of genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis have not yet been promulgated in China, so it is crucial to establish related ethical rules in our hospital in order to better protect the interests of the patient and standardize the medical practices of medical personnel in the work of genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis for genetic patients.