ISSUES TO BE CONSIDERED
The main purpose of screening is to identify infants with sickle cell anemia so that appropriate health care might be given to such infants. The following four types of legal issues will be considered: the extent to which existing state newborn screening laws can accommodate sickle cell anemia, the malpractice concerns related to sickle cell anemia screening, the need for protection of the confidentiality of the data collected by such testing, and the legal issues raised by discrimination against sickle cell carriers. These legal issues cannot be considered in a vacuum, however. Attention must be given to the history of sickle cell screening laws in this country. When state laws mandating sickle cell anemia screening were passed in the early 1970s, they were aimed at giving people information that was helpful for making reproductive choices. Two carriers who were married, for example, had a 25% risk of giving birth to a child with sickle cell anemia. However, because there were no health care measures that could be taken to cure an affected fetus or even to safely diagnose the condition prenatally, the only potential effect of the law was to deter such couples from having children altogether, a tactic criticized as genocidal. Moreover, the early laws lacked provisions for counseling and, thus, fostered misunderstanding and anxiety. The information collected by screening programs apparently also served as a basis for discrimination against people with sickle cell trait. The issues presented by sickle cell anemia screening of newborns are somewhat different because screening is not for the primary purpose of changing reproductive behavior but rather to identify infants who then can be treated.