[ExI] 23andme again

[Stephen Van Sickle]

Spike:

Keep in mind that biodad might not even know he has a kid out there.  If he
is the rakish lady-killer sort, might not even remember biomom.

As a mom of my acquaintance used to say, "I have three kids...that I know
of."  She also used to say "I have three kids...one of each".

--steve vs


On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 4:09 PM, spike <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> ** **
>
> Zowwie, 23andMe has put me into a hell of an ethical dilemma, or perhaps
> more accurately, I have put myself in an ethical dilemma.  Advice or
> comment from ethical hipsters most welcome.****
>
> ** **
>
> Background:  inside of two weeks, I have discovered a second illegitimacy
> in my own ancestry.  We knew from family tradition that one of our great
> great grandfathers was an illegitimate born in about 1855, so that branch
> of the tree came to an end, and has been a dead end for over a century: no
> one knew who his bio father was.  I compared notes with a 23andMe cousin,
> and between us we figured out the likely candidate.  Hey, it was 1855, in a
> town three hours from anything, with a total population of 200 people.  In
> those kinds of places, after dark there is nothing to do.  I was delighted
> to know this of course, and to be the first in the family to discover it.*
> ***
>
> ** **
>
> Yesterday, a young lady contacted me because I was on her list of 3rd or 4
> th cousins from 23andMe.  She didn’t know how to use any of the software
> tools in that, but suggested we share genomes, which I did.  She revealed
> that she was an illegitimate child raised by a stepfather She commented
> that she wanted to find her bio-father but didn’t know where or how to do
> those kinds of searches and couldn’t afford a professional, and that the
> only thing she knew about her bio father was all her mother would tell:
> first name, middle initial and last name, which isn’t much.  But it is an
> unusual last name, and it matched one of the oddball names in my 23andMe
> list.****
>
> ** **
>
> This young lady is clearly unsophisticated, as is easy to tell from her
> post.  Less than an hour of searching through Facebook pages, genealogy
> sites and Spokeo, I figured out who is the likely father, and that he lives
> not all that far from this third cousin.****
>
> ** **
>
> Ethical dilemma: do I tell her?  ****
>
> ** **
>
> My ethics intuition suggests that I refrain from mentioning even that I
> have that info.  Unless someone comes up with an argument to the contrary,
> good chance I will stifle it.  Principle: don’t reveal information against
> someone else’s will.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> But what if it contradicts the will of a third party who may be morally
> entitled to that information?****
>
> ** **
>
> Is it clear now that 23andMe will lead to tall piles of these kinds of
> moral dilemmas, and people’s reaction to them will be all over the map.  I
> don’t feel very comfortable with either of my choices in this case.****
>
> ** **
>
> Gina Nanogirl Miller, comments please?  Max and the ethics hipsters,
> comments please?  What would Anders do?****
>
> ** **
>
> spike****
>
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