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Psychiatric Genetics in Child Custody Proceedings: Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

  • Ethics in Genetic Medicine (L Parker, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Although the current predictive and diagnostic utility of genetic tests for psychiatric disorders is limited, as psychiatric genetic data continue to emerge, they may be introduced in child custody proceedings as part of challenges to parental capacity. This prospect raises ethical, legal, and social issues that judges, custody evaluators, and clinicians will be forced to confront.

Recent Findings

The projected, but plausible, scenarios for obtaining psychiatric data about parents—imposed genetic testing, access to medical records, and genetic theft—as well as the use of children’s psychiatric genetic data raise concerns regarding genetic privacy, stigma, risk for increased genetic surveillance—especially among poor parents and people of color—and interaction with judicial and health professionals’ biases.

Summary

The unchecked introduction of psychiatric genetic data in child custody disputes will have a detrimental effect on the administration of justice. Awareness of the ethical, legal, and social issues and an understanding of the meaning of genomic data by judges, custody evaluators, and clinicians will be pivotal in ensuring that justice is served.

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Notes

  1. The term “genetic theft” was coined by Joh [71]. It refers to the collection of a person’s genetic data without his/her consent and without a judicial order requiring an individual to undergo genetic testing. Rothstein [69] used “genetic stalking” to convey the same idea. We opted for “genetic theft” because the legal definition of stalking requires a recurring behavior, which is unnecessary in the present context.

  2. For example, in paternity cases, direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies often offer an option for paternity testing that can be admissible in court. Admissible paternity testing is handled by licensed experts who collect the data and recognized medical and laboratory facilities that interpret the results to ensure that the chain of custody required by judicial admissibility standards is met [74].

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Acknowledgments

The research was supported by the National Institute of Health (NIH), grants P50HG007257 and K01HG008653.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Center for Research on Ethical, Legal & Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic & Behavioral Genetics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, 1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 122, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Maya Sabatello

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Center for Research on Ethical, Legal & Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic & Behavioral Genetics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, USA

    Paul S. Appelbaum

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  1. Maya Sabatello
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Correspondence to Maya Sabatello.

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Maya Sabatello and Paul S. Appelbaum report grant support from the NIH—K01HG008653 and P50HG007257—for this work.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical collection on Ethics in Genetic Medicine.

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Sabatello, M., Appelbaum, P.S. Psychiatric Genetics in Child Custody Proceedings: Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues. Curr Genet Med Rep 4, 98–106 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40142-016-0093-2

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