Genetics research has shown enormous developments in recent decades, although as yet with only limited clinical application. Bioethical analysis has been unable to deal with the vast problems of genetics because emphasis has been put on the principlism applied to both clinical and research bioethics. Genetics nevertheless poses its most complex moral dilemmas at the public level, where a social...

In his article “A Defense of Unqualified Medical Confidentiality,” Kipnis provides a persuasive argument as to why maintaining unqualified confidentiality is the most effective way of preventing harm to third parties in the health-care setting (Kipnis 2006). However, difficulties emerge when it is applied to the field of clinical genetics. The familial context of clinical genetics means that ro...