Another issue of privacy is in law enforcement. Several states currently allow or even mandate genetic testing for all people arrested for crimes, including juvenile offenders, regardless of whether or not there is a conviction in the case. Often times the blood samples themselves are stored and not just the identifying information, which means that others have access to more than just the identifying factors. These privacy issues must be addressed. Parenting issues arise out of some aspects of genetic testing.
Prenatal testing is a growing trend that brings with it several difficult ethical situations.
There is the dilemma of whether or not to bring a baby into the world that may have serious medical problems either from the start, or sometime down the road. For those who believe that life begins at conception, the decision to end a pregnancy is equal to murder, but there have been cases where health insurers have refused to cover the medical needs of such a child, if he or she is brought into the world. Whether or not to test an older child for certain genetic disorders is another sometimes difficult parenting decision. Requesting a child to be tested for adult onset diseases can have a variety of often-overlooked repercussions. Children are often unprepared to face or understand the results of such tests.