We assume that we are rational, calculating agents, making decisions based on objective facts, and we would like to believe that the answers to our screening questions could be based only on objective medical knowledge, because that would suggest that there should be a correct answer out there to questions of screen or test, when and how. But as the very idea of pure medical facts becomes tainted by the undercurrent of social context within which they are being produced, that option fades away. Those decisions about screening that we are living with today are historically formed and culturally embedded, and will always be so. They will engage our feelings of fear and worry specifically because they address mortality and death. This is the unavoidable “affective.” But instead of seeing that as a starting point for an infected debate, I suggest we embrace it. Perhaps recognizing those feelings and other social considerations in our decision-making will produce more humane, and ultimately more caring, policies for those we are trying to help.