Diabetes

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- Evaluate Angelina Jolie`s choice to undergo a double mastectomy as a way of avoiding breast cancer. In your evaluation, the probability of getting breast cancer before and after the mastectomy from BRCA.

Angelina Jolie decided to have a double mastectomy operation to become healthy and to be happy with her children and family. Her choice was justified in the successfulness of the operation, which reduced 87% chance of a breast cancer down to lower 5%. Despite the great result of this operation, the commitment, support and finance it requires may not be available for everyone.

It definitely was not an easy decision for her to undergo a double mastectomy but she knew the results were assuring and potentially beautiful as well. But during the 8 hours of operation, there were drain tube sand expanders in her breasts, which were really scary and unpleasant however, after the surgery she could be back to a normal life again.

This gives other women a hope to change their lives by doing this surgery. If a chance of getting a breast cancer drops down from 87 percent to under 5 percent it is a great opportunity for other women. She did not feel any less of a woman even though they removed her breast in the operation, as she had reconstruction done afterwards. She stayed strong to be healthy and to gain prolonged happiness with her families. However, this operation is scary, takes a lot of time, need of support, physical pain and also needs a lot of money.

This demanding operation is one of the best result producing methods, however its demand may need to be overcome prior to commencement and Angelina Jolie made the optimal choice to undergo the operation as it suited her need.

- The Australian government is looking into developing an In Vitro genetic test which covers a range of diseases including breast cancer. These diseases are not what the individual will be born with, but rather a probability score of what disease they will develop later in life. The test has a 5% chance of causing a miscarriage.

Would you advise the government to enforce this for all pregnant women? Justify your response with two scientific arguments.

I would not advise the government to enforce this for all pregnant women because the test has a 5% chance of causing a miscarriage and when this is enforced parents will be under severe psychological pressure which may be a risk to their health and ironically to the baby as well.

This test is great for mothers who would like to find out and prevent any potential disease their child is up against through the Vitro genetic testing. However the potential miscarriage of 5% chance potentially jeopardises their successful birth. When finding out potential diseases of the baby is weighed against the potential death of the baby, the morals and values support the idea of having a safe birth.

Secondly, when governments enforce this test, parents who do not want to put their baby at risk of a miscarriage will be penalised or disadvantaged. This will be very stressful for both parents and study done by Royal College of Psychiatrists shows that stress on pregnancy can evolve into development issues for the child. If this Vitro Genetic test is really supposed to be ‘for the child’, by stressing parents it is just bringing forth a counterproductive affect.

Hence I would not advise the governments to enforce Vitro Genetic testing for pregnant women.