Ooooh, I need ice for that burn…
Except that people get tested for things besides those targeted by Dor Yeshorim. And sometimes, they actually want to know the results. The problem is that in the frum world, the world that has this (imaginary) stigma in the first place, swears by Dor Yeshorim. If dating purely outside of the shidduch system, if the person you’re dating will ALWAYS be willing to be tested by another service, you’re right. But “your Dor Yeshorim number” has turned into such a basic part of shidduchim (at least the ones with which I’m familiar) that even if you want to find it out for yourself, you need to do Dor Yeshorim as well if only for shidduchim.
Personally, I’m not sure I would want to be genetically tested so that I’d know the results- it’s a slippery slope, and it’s something I’d have to think about. But if I did, if only for the purposes of shidduchim, I WOULD be tested twice- because baruch Hashem there are people who do worry about potential genetic diseases in their children but they don’t want to be tested twice. For them, Dor Yeshorim may be enough- and practically speaking, they’re probably right. If I were to be tested privately for anything from breast cancer to Tay Sachs to blue-eyedness, I’d have to do it again and do it myself.
Yes, people do test themselves for other things- someone very close to me has had several relatives who passed away of breast cancer so she got herself tested for the BRCA genes. Knowing that she has one of them is changing the way she thinks about her health. Even if Dor Yeshorim tested for BRCA1/2, they wouldn’t tell you which one you have, which is worthless.
Dor Yeshorim, in a practical sense, really doesn’t prevent anyone from being tested by another organization, especially as it’s done in many high schools. It just shoehorns pretty much anyone who wants to conduct shidduchim through the mainstream channels into being part of the system. What I don’t understand is why I couldn’t theoretically be tested by an outside lab, which could give me my results and for more genes than Dor Yeshorim tests, and then submit my results to the Dor Yeshorim lab to have them compared to the guy’s. The same confidentiality is preserved. But either way, whether or not you want to be retested by another organization, you essentially have to be tested by Dor Yeshorim. That’s the only way I’d call it a monopoly- not a great term, admittedly, but the only one I can think of. A niche market may be better.
Where am I going wrong, O mighty Popa?