Genetic Testing and Bipolar Disorder

Kay Jamison discusses the eugenic quandry we face when a prenatal test for manic depression (bipolar disorder) becomes available.

In fact, one of the studies that we did at Johns Hopkins [University], Dr. Carol Trippitelli did, was to look at people who have manic depressive illness and their spouses, and we asked them if you had the choice, if you could test your fetus for the genes for manic depressive illness, would you, first of all would you do it? And overwhelmingly they said yes they did, they wanted that information, I mean the overwhelming majority of people said yes I want the information, I want my doctor to have that information. I do not want my insurance company to have that information but I do want my doctor to have it. But, would you abort that fetus? Overwhelmingly they said no, absolutely not. So we don't know what people would do, I mean the fact of the matter is this is all uncharted territory and we don't know what decisions people are going to make and it's scary, it is frightening and it's exciting, both.