Salocin

DNA Tests at the Border

I had a fairly animated discussion with some old friends who work in politics last night. The issue being discussed was the use of DNA tests to determine parentage for the purpose of immigration. Understandably, this has caused a fair amount of consternation among liberals. The criticisms tend to be blurred by the "outrage" (I hate that word) that people feel. It would be more constructive perhaps to pick apart the arguments and decide what we are really against, and what is not so much an issue.

So what are we looking at? The proposed law covers the potential use of a DNA test to verify a claimed parentage link where that link is a significant factor in a claim for certain rights in the context of an immigration application.

There's a lot of elements in there. I disagree with the motivating force behind most of them. Where I disagree with many of the people who find this so objectionable is on the point that DNA tests are somehow "bad".

Verifying Claims
The government has a right to verify claims made in an application where it has the means. If that means were a DNA test, and that technology is available, then that technology should be allowed to be used. I see nothing wrong with that. In this case, I don't believe a DNA test is an appropriate test given what is being tested for, but I am not against DNA tests on principle, provided they can prove what needs to be proven.

If you make a claim, and based upon that claim you assert that you have certain rights, the government you are facing is under no obligation to take your word for it. If you claim that no documents exist to back up that claim, or if the authenticity of those documents can legitimately be called into question, then you should expect the government you are facing to make every effort to ascertain the truth of your claim. This is to ensure you get what you are entited to.

Verifying Parentage
This is where it gets tricky. Statistically speaking, a study by the London School of Economics in 2000 found that one in seven fathers were mistaken in their belief that they are the the biological father of their offspring. Leaving aside the large moral and ethical questions of how this came to pass, the point is that after acting as the father for many years, the link between father and son, whether underpinned by biology or not, remains societally real. Should a person be turned away at the border because of infidelity by their mother many years ago. Somewhat less controversially, how does this affect adopted children, who have a similar moral status - at least to my mind?

It would be logically dishonest not to look at the other side of this coin - what of the people who will show up claiming parentage to someone in the country when they know full well they have none? It is, I believe, fair to assume that there will be more of these than cases of misattributed fatherhood - a loophole in immigration laws is quickly taken advantage of. If you doubt this, cut a hole in the chain link fence surrounding the Eurotunnel rails and see how many people will try to squeeze through it in a single night.

Clearly the issue is complex, and while DNA tests bring us closer to the true solution, they move us from a point where previously we had too many people coming through a border under false pretenses, to a new situation where a smaller number of people are now denied passage due to a DNA test that focuses on a biological interpretation of fatherhood to the exclusion of all else.

If you believe that one person turned away for the wrong reasons is one person too many, and you would rather have people admitted under false pretenses, then you should be against the DNA testing at the border. Governments clearly do not hold this opinion, which is understandable if they are already battling fiscal and societal difficulties arising from a rate of immigration higher than their country can absorb.

I personally am against DNA testing at the border, for neither of the reasons above. I think that it is too easy a fix, and that were it to be used, no further effort would be made to find a better solution, this imperfect solution serving as it does the political aims of modern governments to keep as many people out under legitimate pretexts as possible. The more complicated questions regarding the legitimacy of parentage would never be tackled in the context of immigration.

Mandatory DNA Tests
These tests are not mandatory. Mandatory means you have no choice and there is nothing you can do other than be tested. You are asking to enter a country where no records exist to prove your claim, and therefore they want to use what methods they have to verify your claim. You don't want the test - you can walk away - nobody's forcing you to do anything. It is, however, unrealistic to expect an immigration service to take such claims on faith, based on the number of lies they deal with in applications on a daily basis. What information I have heard is anecdotal, but doesn't paint a pretty picture with regard to honesty in disclosures to immigration officials.

Where I change my mind is the situation where perfectly acceptable proof of paternity is provided in document format, from repected authorities, which can be checked with a couple of phone calls to the right people. In this situation, an acceptable alternative has been provided, and the DNA test becomes redundant. It should not be the front line test for the verification of a paternity test, it should be the fallback where other methods are insufficient, allowing people who don't have the requisite document another way of proving what they are saying.

Regardless, the DNA test is always, from everything I have read, taken at the election of the individual, in order to prove their claims. The immigration officials are merely saying, "What you have provided is insufficient to prove your claims, here is another method you can use to prove this aspect of your application to us". There's nothing mandatory about it.

Privacy
The DNA sample and information should not be kept afterwards. The only case where a DNA sample can justifiably be kept, to my mind, is in the case of convicted criminals who are also likely to be reoffenders, and who have committed a certain class or category of crime. i.e. violent crime, sexual abuse, that sort of thing, where the DNA could be a key component in proving future offenses and the existence of the sample in police records therefore serves as a significant deterrent to re-offending.

DNA samples taken for the purposes of immigration should be destroyed once the immigration is complete and the dossier closed.

DNA Tests are Evil
DNA tests are a form of technology. How they are used is a far greater concern than how they work or the fact that they are possible. The development of this technology is unstoppable, and as it becomes progressively easier to do a DNA test, it will become more and more prevalent in society. It is therefore more important to manage its integration into our daily lives in a way that fits with our morals and ethics than to stand in the way of its development because it frightens us, as it will be developed regardless of how we feel or the extent to which we seek to outlaw it.

It's important not to mix this issue up with others - people talk about the abortion of children with various genertic characteristics (propensity to develop various illnesses, for example), that is not about DNA testing, but about how we allow it to be used, based on our own moral code and based on the laws we establish. The two should never be confused.

An aside on the future effects of DNA testing
DNA testing will revolutionise areas like insurance, but when you really think about it, we've already started down this path. Insurance contracts already provide discounts to people in lower risk categories because it is deemed unfair for people with a low risk to subsidise those with a high risk of causing, for example, a car accident. Women drivers get significant discounts in the UK, as do those who have taken advanced driving courses. Those who go regularly to the gym get lower insurance premiums from certain health schemes. An insurance programme that takes money from healthy people to cure cancer in smokers isn't really an insurance, it's a tax. It's a perfectly legitimate tax if a government, representing its people, chooses to maintain it, but the two things - a tax and an insurance - should not be confused.

The key question becomes : If I can get additional health insurance from a private organisation that will give me better service for lower premiums based on a risk profile that uses a DNA test as part of its calculation, should that be illegal? It's no more discriminatory than a woman getting cheaper car insurance than a man. I'm not claiming to answer the question here, but it does raise interesting concerns about the boundary between the state (which has a duty to insure us all to a minimum level) and the private sector (which makes private arrangements between individuals and companies that are then enforced by the law). Should the law start prescribing what can and can't be put in an insurance contract, what does and doesn't form a legitimate basis for a discount, and therefore - in the context of medical insurance - force the private sector to cross-subsidise the unhealthy at the expense of the healthy? Open questions leading to big but nuanced decisions that will make extremely visible the characters of nations.

Posted by nlvp at October 24, 2007 01:36 PM