Bioethical Deliberation on Genomic Testing: Islamic Perspectives

The "ethical aspects of genomic testing" is a global, contemporary, rising, and challenging topic, and it is certainly worthy of careful analysis and research. Furthermore, it is relevant to the State of Qatar as it launched the Qatar Genome Programme (QGP) in 2013. By performing genomic testing, we can know a huge amount of information about the body of the tested person. We can also predict some diseases with high certainty. Furthermore, testing one person may reveal highly relevant information about other family members as well. These characteristics of genomic testing raise complex ethical questions and dilemmas regarding performing the test in the first place, and in disclosing and managing the obtained results of the test. The main objective of this thesis is to give a comprehensive overview of the ethical aspects of this contemporary issue in order to have a good understanding of its complex dimensions. To achieve this goal, relevant data are analyzed that are related to three main areas, namely the scientific and medical aspects of genomic testing, including possible benefits and harms; the key ethical challenges and dilemmas related to genomic testing as described in Western bioethics literature; and finally, the Islamic ethical perspectives. Within this work, two real case-studies have been discussed. The first one is related to a Qatari patient recruited in Hamad General Hospital (HGH), and the ethical dilemma discussed concerns incidental findings. The second case-study is related to the ethics of management of a late-onset disease, Huntington disease. While Islamic tradition is rich in general in its sources and methodologies, the Islamic discourse on the contemporary issue of genomics testing still needs more effort to develop a comprehensive discourse. This thesis can help in achieving this goal.