Emerging Technologies and Developing Countries: Stem Cell Research (and Cloning) Regulation and Argentina

Abstract

Innovation is the mantra of the modern, knowledge-based political-economy, and biotech innovation is one of the central pillars of the new 'innovation society'. Healthcare innovation is both an integral part of, and is reshaping, that society, introducing new lexicons, redefining our understanding of desirable and undesirable bodily states, reforging our relationships with our bodies, other people and the environment, and so on. An important facet of healthcare innovation is stem cell research. This paper explores the moral controversy surrounding human embryonic stem cell research and assesses its legal position in Argentina. Such an analysis is important/timely because stem cell research is a much-hyped pursuit to which much hope is attached, and, simultaneously, a much-maligned pursuit to which much antipathy is directed; human embryonic stem cell research in particular is the site of mammoth bioethical clashes around unique issues relating to (1) the wellbeing of the embryo, the harvesting of which currently requires its destruction, and (2) the wellbeing of the collective, which is notionally threatened by certain processes associated with human embryonic stem cell research, most notably cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer. An analysis of human embryonic stem cell research (and Stem cell research more generally) in Argentina is important/timely because Argentina is a southern, economically fragile, developing country that is actively pursuing regenerative medicine and stem cell solutions to health problems. Indeed, Argentina is one of a handful of developing countries taking steps to build a competitive domestic market. The paper concludes with an assessment of the adequacy of Argentina's existing regulation and some suggestions for moving forward.