Safe and effective methods of preconception gender selection through flow cytometric separation of X- and Y-bearing sperm could greatly increase the use of gender selection by couples contemplating reproduction. Such a development raises ethical, legal, and social issues about the impact of such practices on offspring, on sex ratio imbalances, and on sexism and the status of women. This paper analyzes the competing interests in preconception gender selection, and concludes that its use to increase gender variety in a family, and (...) possibly for selecting the gender of firstborn, might in many instances be ethically acceptable. (shrink)

: Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to save many lives, must be recovered from aborted fetuses or live embryos. Although tissue from aborted fetuses can be used without moral complicity in the underlying abortion, obtaining stem cells from embryos necessarily kills them, thus raising difficult questions about the use of embryonic human material to save others. This article draws on previous controversies over embryo research and distinctions between intrinsic and symbolic moral status to analyze these issues. It argues (...) that stem cell research with spare embryos produced during infertility treatment, or even embryos created specifically for research or therapeutic purposes, is ethically acceptable and should receive federal funding. (shrink)

Embryonic stem cell research has been a source of ethical, legal, and social controversy since the first successful culturing of human ESCs in the laboratory in 1998. The controversy has slowed the pace of stem cell science and shaped many aspects of its subsequent development. This paper assesses the main issues that have bedeviled stem cell progress and identifies the ethical fault lines that are likely to continue.The time is appropriate for such an assessment because the field is poised for (...) a period of rapid development. President Obama has removed the Bush administration’s restrictions on federal funding. A huge influx of federal research funds is in the offing and presumably a more rapid maturing of the science will take place. Stem cell science is also moving into the clinical realm. In March 2009, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first clinical trial with an ESC-derived therapy for spinal cord injuries, an important first step — though by no means a final or a sure one — in moving ESC research out of the laboratory into clinical medicine. Finally, recent work with induced pluripotent stem cells suggests that non-embryonic sources of pluripotent stem cells may one day be routinely available. Such a development will lessen the temperature of the ethical debate while raising other issues. (shrink)

This overview of 10 years of stem cell controversy reviews the moral conflict that has made ESCs so controversial and how this conflict plays itself out in the legal realm, focusing on the constitutional status of efforts to ban ESC research or ESC-derived therapies. It provides a history of the federal funding debate from the Carter to the Obama administrations, and the importance of the Raab memo in authorizing federal funding for research with privately derived ESCs despite the Dickey-Wicker ban (...) on federal funding of embryo research. It also reviews the role that scientists themselves have played in developing regulations for ESC research, the emergence of ESCROs as special review bodies for ESC research, and the thorough consent requirements for donation of IVF embryos to ESC research. With research now transitioning from the lab to the clinic, the article reviews the challenges of ensuring safety and consent in translational research. It concludes with a call for respecting those persons who have to using or working with ESC products and an account of how obtaining stem cells from a person's own cells will alleviate some but not all of the controversy surrounding ESC research. (shrink)

: Pharmacogenetics offers the prospect of an era of safer and more effective drugs, as well as more individualized use of drug therapies. Before the benefits of pharmacogenetics can be realized, the ethical issues that arise in research and clinical application of pharmacogenetic technologies must be addressed. The ethical issues raised by pharmacogenetics can be addressed under six headings: regulatory oversight, confidentiality and privacy, informed consent, availability of drugs, access, and clinicians' changing responsibilities in the era of pharmacogenetic medicine. We (...) analyze each of these categories of ethical issues and provide policy approaches for addressing them. (shrink)

Progress in gene sequencing could make rapid whole genome sequencing of individuals affordable to millions of persons and useful for many purposes in a future era of genomic medicine. Using the idea of $1000 genome as a focus, this article reviews the main technical, ethical, and legal issues that must be resolved to make mass genotyping of individuals cost-effective and ethically acceptable. It presents the case for individual ownership of a person's genome and its information, and shows the implications of (...) that position for rights to informed consent and privacy over sequencing, testing, and disclosing genomic information about identifiable individuals. Legal recognition of a person's right to control his or her genome and the information that it contains is essential for further progress in applying genomic discoveries to human lives. (shrink)

In vitro fertilization is now a well-established practice in the field of assisted reproduction. In 1995, over 41,000 IVF cycles were done in the United States, at a cost of more than $300 million. The overall success rate has risen to 22.8 deliveries per 100 egg-retrieval procedures. As the field has matured, the attention of policy-makers has shifted from questions about the ethical and legal status of human embryos to concerns about providing access and protecting consumers.Three such concerns have emerged. (...) One is the danger that IVF programs will disseminate misleading information about their success rates in order to attract patients. This problem, however, may be alleviated by the publication in late 1997 of the first of annual national and clinic specific reports, based on randomly audited data, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, and RESOLVE, pursuant to the federal 1992 Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Laboratory Certification Act. (shrink)

In vitro fertilization is now a well-established practice in the field of assisted reproduction. In 1995, over 41,000 IVF cycles were done in the United States, at a cost of more than $300 million. The overall success rate has risen to 22.8 deliveries per 100 egg-retrieval procedures. As the field has matured, the attention of policy-makers has shifted from questions about the ethical and legal status of human embryos to concerns about providing access and protecting consumers.Three such concerns have emerged. (...) One is the danger that IVF programs will disseminate misleading information about their success rates in order to attract patients. This problem, however, may be alleviated by the publication in late 1997 of the first of annual national and clinic specific reports, based on randomly audited data, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, and RESOLVE, pursuant to the federal 1992 Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Laboratory Certification Act. (shrink)

The February 1997 announcement of the birth of Dolly, the sheep cloned from a mammary cell of an adult ewe, has drawn attention to the growing ability to select, alter, or otherwise manipulate the genome of offspring. Prior to Dolly, ethical discussion of genes in reproduction had focused on negative selection: carrier screening, prenatal diagnosis, and abortion or embryo discard. After Dolly, ethical debate will have to consider the direct or positive use of genetic selection or alteration technology.The principal use (...) of genetic selection techniques in human reproduction likely will be to treat or prevent disease in offspring. In the future, however, such techniques might also be used to enhance or even diminish expected characteristics of progeny. Techniques to accomplish these goals are likely to include: selection of the nuclear genome, as occurs in somatic cell cloning; chromosomal transplants; or direct insertion or deletion of specific genes. (shrink)

The February 1997 announcement of the birth of Dolly, the sheep cloned from a mammary cell of an adult ewe, has drawn attention to the growing ability to select, alter, or otherwise manipulate the genome of offspring. Prior to Dolly, ethical discussion of genes in reproduction had focused on negative selection: carrier screening, prenatal diagnosis, and abortion or embryo discard. After Dolly, ethical debate will have to consider the direct or positive use of genetic selection or alteration technology.The principal use (...) of genetic selection techniques in human reproduction likely will be to treat or prevent disease in offspring. In the future, however, such techniques might also be used to enhance or even diminish expected characteristics of progeny. Techniques to accomplish these goals are likely to include: selection of the nuclear genome, as occurs in somatic cell cloning; chromosomal transplants; or direct insertion or deletion of specific genes. (shrink)