Richard Spencer

May 01, 2008

Although I await Steve Sailer?s and John Derbyshire?s weighing in on the subject, let me start off by saying that I can?t imagine what could possibly have been accomplished by the Senate?s passage of a bill to ban ?genetic discrimination? based on genetic test results. 

According to The Hill:

?Senators speaking on behalf of the measure on Thursday likened it to legislation aimed at ending gender and race discrimination. ?It?s the first civil rights bill of the new century of life sciences,? said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) on the Senate floor.?

The president seemed to be backing the bill, and this sparked NRO to rationalize the inherent goodness of passing it. I suspect that if the President?s Council on Bioethics were around a hundred years ago, they’d have been horrified by the notion of transplanting someone?s kidney into another human?clearly this is an overstep of the natural order that should be federally banned! 

The fact is, genes affect susceptibility to disease, and genetic testing can help pinpoint just how and to what degree and thus help insurance companies design specific regimes for specific clients. Washington?s banning of testing simply means that we?ll all be paying higher premiums in order to account for the added risk companies bear due to their taking on certain patients who could easily have been put on different plans. 

And then there’s the real reason why Washington got involved and why Teddy is claiming that this is a ?civil rights? issue. 

Let?s put it this way, if we?re all 99.9% the same (or interchangeable), if genes don?t matter, if we?re all blank slates waiting to be written on by the environment, then why ban genetic testing??and why mention gender and race?