For some people, genetic information would factor into their decisions about marriage and childbearing (Appelbaum, 2004; Finn & Smoller, 2006; Meiser et al., 2005). Even without genetic testing, family history has been known to affect these important decisions. Among website visitors with psychosis in the family who responded to a questionnaire, 23% said their family history motivated them to have fewer children or no children (Austin et al., 2006). Similarly, among 200 persons with a family history of bipolar disorder, about half of whom had an affective disorder themselves, 30% were less willing to have children as a result and 5% were unwilling; 65% reported no effect of their family history on their attitude towards childbearing (Meiser et al., 2007). When considering genetic testing specifically, 92% of bipolar patients and 79% of their spouses in Trippitelli et al.’s (1998) survey said they would still have married even if a blood test had detected a gene for bipolar disorder. In the same study, 55% of patients and 58% of their spouses said knowing they or their spouse had a gene for
