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3. Experimenting and the New Biology: “A Consummation Devoutly to Be Wished”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Russell Scott
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Extract

The rapid pace of medical innovation has raised the question: Can existing institutions, such as law reform commissions and other official bodies, and existing techniques, such as traditional legislation, deal effectively with the regulatory problems of today's world?

The New Biology has exhibited the capacity to arouse storms of public debate and to paralyze politicians or impel them towards unwise legislation. Examples of new and problematic technologies are the treatment of grossly defective newborn babies, live organ transplantation, cloning, the diagnosis of brain death, and, perhaps most important of all, manipulation of genes. But if there is one procedure that typifies the extreme reactions roused by the New Biology, it is in vitro fertilization (IVF), the technique whereby human eggs are fertilized outside the human body.

At the epicenter of the storm over IVF is the public debate concerning laboratory research and experiment on fertilized human eggs.

Type
Part I: New Reproductive Technologies
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 14 , Issue 3-4 , September 1986 , pp. 123 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1986

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References

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