Way 1

Way George
Professor Sonia Rodríguez
English 001A-005
12 November 2010

Karyotypes- Are They a Bad Thing?

A man walks into a job interview with all of the confidence in the world. He is

completely eligible for this position and is in fact over qualified for this position. During the

interview he is asked about his personal history and almost everything that he is associated with.

The interviewer likes him and is ready to give him the position until he checks his medical

records. Within the medical records there is a particular paper clipped document that catches the

interviewer’s eyes. It was a karyotype- a karyotype is a test to identify and evaluate the size,

shape, and number of chromosomes in a sample of body cells (revolutionhealth.com) - that the

interviewee had done a while back. In the results page, it showed that he had Huntington’s

disease. Huntington’s disease is a disease that occurs throughout the life of an individual and its

side effects are degeneration of the brain that affects muscle coordination, which usually shows

up during middle age. Since this position would be a long-term position, the interviewer told the

man that he could not hire him. All of this would not have happened if he did not have a

karyotype.

Karyotypes are basically the mapping out of a human’s chromosomes. They can be used

the identify deformities and mutations in the chromosomal map of humans. There are various

genetic disorders that can be identified just by looking at a karyotype. For example, trisomy-21

(more commonly known as Down syndrome) can be identified right away from the use of a

karyotype. This leads to the idea of whether or not karyotypes are good or bad. Doctors can take

a sample of the amniotic fluid (the watery substance inside of the amniotic sack in the uterus
 Way 2

during pregnancy) and make a karyotype of the developing child. If they find out that the child

has trisomy-21 then the parents can decide whether to keep the developing child. This can be

perceived as good or bad. It is good if the parents cannot bear to raise a Down-syndrome child

and wish to end their unborn child’s misery before it begins. It can also be viewed as something

bad because humans are starting to play the role of God- determining whether or not a human is

fit for this world before it is born into the world. Karyotypes, overall, have negative effects and

few positive effects that are debatable.

To begin with, parents of children that are diagnosed with autism or suspect that they

have autism do not get the necessary coverage by their health insurance companies. It turns out

that the Autism spectrum disorders can be detected by a karyotype (autismparentsclub.com) but

health insurance providers are not willing to help their customers get these types of tests for their

children or developing children. In fact, some insurance companies won’t even cover certain

individuals if they test positive via karyotype for a genetic disorder because they are too much of

a risk than they are of a viable customer. This is a huge problem because when an individual is

diagnosed with a certain genetic disorder, then medical bills from much needed hospital visits

pile up and leave some families in economic ruin along with the loss of a loved one. Karyotypes

can also lead to other things besides financial ruin.

My aunt had my cousin, who was diagnosed with autism and when she turned to her

health insurance provider for assistance with the medical bills, they turned a blind eye to her.

However, it was a good thing that he did not have a severe case of autism and he was given some

medical coverage that he needed rather than no medical coverage like some of the more severe

cases. In the case of my aunt, she was actually fortunate that she got the karyotype of her son

before he came out so that she was able to prepare for the future costs but it was bad that the
 Way 3

insurance companies did not help my aunt pay for some of the medical costs that were necessary

for the well-being of my cousin.

In addition to limited to no health insurance coverage for certain cases, karyotypes can

lead to genetic discrimination in other ways. In the film Gattaca, the whole concept of genetic

engineering and discrimination was brought about. In the movie, a person’s social position was

basically based off of their genetic make-up or what their karyotype said about them. People

were able to alter the DNA of their child and make the ideal child for society. However, if they

procreated the old-fashioned way and had a child that was not genetically altered, there were

many preconceptions of how inferior a child would be compared to others. This brings about the

whole idea of allowing people to be held back from doing what they want or getting what they

want, no matter how hard they work for it, due to their genetic predispositions. This is one of the

possibilities of the various negative effects karyotypes can have.

Still taking the whole Gattaca concept into consideration, karyotypes can really have

adverse effects on our society. Our whole life would be dependent on just one thing alone and

nothing else could affect that. Just think, how would you like it if your whole life were based on

how your parents made you? Wouldn’t that make you feel like you had no real sense of choice?

Karyotypes have so much to offer society but most of what they can offer is negative due to the

way people can use them to destine their children’s futures to be better than that of other

children’s lives.

Moreover, in the field of economics, karyotyping would not make much of a difference.

There is the alternative of conceiving babies- in vitro fertilization where scientists can test

embryos before they are planted in the female’s uterus and determine whether or not it is a
 Way 4

healthy embryo. In vitro fertilization would stimulate the economy even further than just getting

karyotypes and not allowing people to get health insurance with certain genetic disorders.

According to some research, in vitro fertilization can cost up to $34,250 (novaivf.com) which is

equivalent to buying a new car! Also, more people would be healthy, which is a positive

externality because it allows more people to invest in health insurance or life insurance-

increasing expenditures on investments would lead to a more prosperous economy. Karyotyping,

if used in the right way, could be beneficial to the economy even if they insured people

regardless of their genetic make-up because more people would be healthy due to in vitro

fertilization and karyotyping.

The economy could do fine without karyotypes. Due to the negativities attached to

karyotypes, few people actually allow doctors to make a karyotype of them. Halting the

production of karyotypes would actually do relatively nothing to the economy due to the other

parts of the economy related to healthcare having a more significant impact on the economy.

Overall, karyotypes do not have much of an impact on the economy, but the

On another note, karyotypes can be something that is not bad at all. The original use of a

karyotype was to find out how many chromosomes humans actually had because they were

skeptical if humans had forty-six or forty-eight chromosomes. However, in the past thirty years,

karyotyping was the best way to test fetuses to see if they had any abnormalities in their DNA

(biomedcentral.com). They could easily see if a developing fetus had any abnormalities and if

they were severe or not. They were able to see if a child had autism, Down syndrome, or

possibly Tay-Sach’s Disease (a disease in which the brain cannot break down certain fats in the

brain, which ultimately leads to brain failure at an early age) and ask parents if they wanted to

birth a child like that into the world. This was very good because this helped to prevent any
 Way 5

economical burdens that can be placed on the family with medical costs of keeping the child.

Although that may seem morbid to abort a baby due to flaws in its DNA make-up, it is beneficial

in keeping disabled people from becoming a burden to a family.

Overlooking just the biological factors, karyotyping is also something that is very

economically sound. If you sit and think about insurance companies, you would find that they

rely on the fact that people pay for their services based on the fact that they do not know when

they are going to die. Karyotypes can show if someone has Huntington’s disease (a disease that

really affects a person with the genetic disorder around middle age) and if they know they are

going to die soon, they can buy the most expensive life insurance plan there possibly is and get a

nice pay out for their family. Examples like this would lead to the downfall of the life insurance

companies and possibly a good portion of the economy as we know it.

Although those are pretty positive aspects of karyotyping, they are not all that good.

When you decide to play God- deciding whether or not a fetus should continue developing or

not, it always raises the question if this is really the right thing to do. To the radical Christians,

this is not something that is widely accepted because humans are most basically playing God,

deciding if something should live or die based solely off of a test. The idea of playing God in a

western society just does not bode well with the public, thus, there is too much controversy when

identifying if a fetus has any genetic disorders that can lead to the end of its development.

Summing up, karyotyping has more negative effects than it does have positive effects on

individuals and macro structures of society. A man cannot get a job due to some genetic

predispositions that are out of his grasp would be discrimination and considered unconstitutional

but would still occur nonetheless. Health insurance companies do not wish to pay for people that
 Way 6

have medical needs due to genetic disorders that are a result that is due to chance. The concept of

genetic segregation is also something that can be linked to karyotypes and certain effects they

have on society. Although karyotypes have numerous cons, they do have pros such as identifying

genetic disorders early on in human development and making sure people are producing healthy

babies. They can also help the economy and not let anyone with a certain disease become rich.

However, those pros do have their down falls such as the whole concept of playing God. There

are other ways to bolster the economy and keep money flowing through health insurance and

things of that nature. All-in-all, karyotypes have their positive and negative effects on human

behavior, but the negative possibilities far outweigh their positive possibilities. There are many

ways karyotyping can be interpreted but of those ways, there are numerous negative ways in

which karyotypes can be perceived due to religious beliefs or social beliefs. It is evident that

there are a lot more things to karyotypes than the simple mapping of the human genome and to

see how each chromosome looks like, they are tools for malicious conduct within society.

Working Bibliography

1. Admin. “Better genetic test for autism? Chromosomal Microarray analysis picks up more
abnormalities than current tests.” Autismparentsclub.com 17. March 2010. Web.
November 2010.
<http://autismparentsclub.com/page/4/>
2. Boormans Elisabeth. “Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification versus
karyotyping in prenatal diagnosis: the M.A.K.E. study.” Biomedcentral.com. B.M.C., 18
August 2008. Web. November 2010.
 Way 7

<http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/8/18>
3. Essig G. Maria. “Test Overview.” Revolutionhealth.com. 26. April 2007. Web.
November 2010.
<http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions/mental-behavioral-health/autism/exams-
tests/karyotype>
4. Gattaca. Dir. Niccol. Columbia Pictures, 1997. 2010 DVD.
5. Novaivf.com. “IVF Treatment Fees.” Novaivf.com. 12. November 2010. Web.
November 2010.
<http://novaivf.com/cost-ivf.htm>