gattica

SARAHLYNN LESTER, 32, considers herself a supporter of abortion rights. She gives money to the National Abortion Rights Action League and volunteers for Planned Parenthood. But as a woman who continued a pregnancy after learning that her child would have Down syndrome, she also has beliefs about the ethics of choosing, or not choosing, certain kinds of children.

In the futuristic 1997 film Gattaca , people are held to strict genetic standards for employment; well-qualified individuals are refused jobs soley on the basis of genetic information. Automated DNA typing is used as a biometric identification method to restrict entry to office buildings (in place of an ID badge). The film dramatizes the concerns that many people have about the possibility that genetic information, like inborn susceptibility to disease, could be held against them when job-seeking, or when looking for insurance.

Doctors may be able to use a simple test on newborn babies to predict their chances of developing diseases such as diabetes and heart disease if groundbreaking research in WA is successful.
  
Perth doctors are collecting DNA from 3000 WA teenagers and will match it with information about their lifestyles to produce a model which could be used in future to indicate the types of diseases people could develop over their lifetime.