Abstract

1. I am grateful to the respondents for the opportunity provided, to clarify the concept of a libertarian right to test and its normative implications. To sum up, I concede that genomes have a normatively salient informational aspect, that exercising the LRT may cause informational harm and violate rights of genetically related individuals, and that this is relevant to the regulation of genetic testing. But such considerations are logically compatible with a non-absolute LRT and its libertarian justification. The LRT is practically relevant because it inverts the burden of justification and recognising a LRT may affect the way in which other rights are protected in a conflict of rights case. I will try to clarify this further, in what follows. 2. Consider B, an individual who is, and is aware of being, genetically related to A. Admittedly, while person A has a LRT, the interests of person B should also be protected.1 …