Mandatory DNA samples.

[Gina]

If we start doing DNA tests on newborns, I'd presume they'd be kept in a civilian database, not a criminal one.

I don't believe it violates the child/person's rights any more than taking inked footprints of babies violates their rights.

Only footprints are not used to identify the perpetrator of a crime, while DNA is.

The enormous advantage of a civilian DNA data base of every person on the planet (I know, sci-fi big time, but we've gotta start somewhere) would be an enormous law enforcement tool, an enormous advantage when searching for missing persons or finding an unidentifiable corpse.

This I do not understand. Missing persons leave behind DNA in their homes; hairbrushes, toothbrushes, dirty laundry...that can be entered into a database once they are established as missing.

The downside would be misuse of the database by potential employers, etc., who might use it to discriminate against individuals with a predisposition to certain medical conditions or diseases. That can be controlled, I believe. Individuals who want to know what their future medical problems might be in order to do some pre-emptive therapy could find this invaluable. Medical science would find it invaluable, as it would be able to trace genetic illnesses more easily and eliminate those illnesses suspected of being genetic, but which the database would prove must have other causes.

There are misuses greater than unlawful discrimination by employers. Insurance companies would love to have access to that information.

Such an undertaking, the collection and database entry of all newborns, is rife with the potential of errors, manipulation and unintended consequences. Again, I mention the fact that we do not have uniform collection of newborn fingerprints. Imagine how that would help in criminal investigations.

This is all over a period of future decades, but I think it's the way modernized nations must and will go forward. At least, I hope they will.

I hope they don't. It's another infringement on our right to privacy.

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

Damn you guys crack me up. You are worried about a simple DNA database. By 2020, the USA government will have electronic access to your complete medical profile and history.

I support that, too. Especially since I believe healthcare should be managed by the government in the first place.