Genetic testing to restore the human right to identity in post-dictatorship Argentina: Ethical, legal, and social issues.

Abstract

The last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983), committed egregious violations of human rights, including torture assassinations and disappearance of 30,000 political dissidents as well as friends and relatives. This included hundreds of pregnant women who were kept in clandestine detention centers and killed after delivering their babies in abject conditions. The succeeding democratic governments applied forensic genetics at the Banco Nacional de Datos Genéticos to identify the estimated 500 children stolen at birth and being reared by military families with suppression of their identity. The first genetic identification was in 1984 of a 6 years old, while the latest was in 2019 of a 44 years old, completing so far 130 identifications along 35 years of post-dictatorship. The ethical, legal, and psycho-social complexities of restoration of genetic identity after years of appropriation and suppression of identity in the Argentine context, is discussed at length. Evidence indicates that after initial psychological distress, most individuals that had their true genetic identity restored experienced relief by learning the truth and reuniting with their biological families. Many "recovered grandchildren" are socially and politically involved in progressive causes and express pride for the social activism of their disappeared parents. The role played by genetics in support of the right to identity in Argentina has set an example of social responsibility of science in defense of human rights.