Legal and ethical issues of newborn screening

Newborn screening raises many ethical and legal concerns, from the bioethics issues commonly faced with genetic testing and the practice of informed consent to the classical medical ethics questions that surround resource allocation. This mandatory, state-based healthcare intervention has not met with the resistance that one might have anticipated, yet it is still not integrated into society to its full potential. While there is room for newborn screening programs to improve on the technical, ethical, and legal fronts, this should not discourage policymakers, physicians, scientists, and other stakeholders from learning from the successful aspects of its implementation and applying these lessons to other, related technologies.