Bend it like Beckham! The Ethics of Genetically Testing Children for Athletic Potential

Silvia Camporesi

doi:10.1080/17511321.2013.780183

Abstract

The recent boom of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests, aimed at measuring children’s athletic potential, is the latest wave in the ‘pre-professionalization’ of children that has characterized, especially but not exclusively, the USA in the last 15 years or so. In this paper, I analyse the use of DTC genetic tests, sometimes coupled with more traditional methods of ‘talent scouting’, to assess a child’s predisposition to athletic performance. I first discuss the scientific evidence at the basis of these tests, and the parental decision in terms of education, and of investing in the children’s future, taken on the basis of the results of the tests. I then discuss how these parental practices impact on the children’s right to an open future, and on their developing sense of autonomy. I also consider the meaning and role of sports in childhood, and conclude that the use of DTC genetic tests to measure children’s athletic potential should be seen as a ‘wake up’ call for other problematic parental attitudes aimed at scouting and developing children’s talent.

Highlights

The recent boom of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests, aimed at measuring children’s athletic potential, is the latest wave in the ‘pre-professionalization’ of children that has characterized, especially but not exclusively, the USA in the last 15 years or so
I have argued elsewhere that parents should not be allowed to resort to pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to choose to have deaf children like themselves, on the basis of the rights of the children to a/an open future and on the limits of parental reproductive freedom (Camporesi 2010)
Sport in children could instead be understood as a ‘practice’, defined by MacIntyre (1984) as a coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity (MacIntyre 1984, 186)

Summary

Introduction

‘Bend it like Beckham’ is the title of a 2002 Golden Globe-nominated movie by British director of Indian origin Gurinder Chadha. Parents aim to gain an early advantage (a ‘head start’) which would allow Camporesi their children to turn already at an early age into professional athletes, and continue on a hoped-for chain of events from college scholarship to success, fame and money. I consider another kind of intervention that may at first sight appear much less ‘radical’ than intervening at the level of PGD to mold children’s futures. This would be the use of genetic tests, sometimes coupled with talent scout camps, to assess the child’s predisposition to athletic performance. I discuss how these parental practices impact on the children’s right to an open future (ROF), and on their developing sense of autonomy, and consider the meaning and role of sports in childhood

Genetic Tests for Athletic Performance

Parents Scouting their Children’s Talents

What it Means to be a Child and Discretionary Domains of Autonomy

The Meaning and Significance of Sport in the Child

Findings

Conclusions