Law and the new potentials of biology.

Abstract

The biological stage of the revolution in science and technology represents a continuing and accelerating "switching" of science to a focus on man as studies advance from the lower to higher levels of organization of animate systems. With the help of science, the nature of man will adapt itself more and more to new environmental conditions as they change under the influence of scientific and technical progress. Attainment of this objective involves further development of human genetics and genetic engineering. Its next stage, with respect to man, will be "correction" of the functioning of pathological genes, and later will come replacement of them by normal ones, thereby opening a new road to prevention of hereditary disease. The first achievements along these lines have already been attained in the form of successes in the synthesizing of genes and development of methods of introducing them into the genetic apparatus. A number of forms of genetic management pose important ethical and legal problems: the use of transplants from cell nuclei to obtain numerous copies of identical organisms (vegetative multiplication); the possibility of artificial fertilization of the human egg followed by reimplantation into the womb; prenatal diagnosis of possible genetic disease by biochemical or cytogenetic analysis of the amniotic fluid. Such analysis is already in use. Artificial fertilization is also possible now, although genetic management in this connection will become a reality only some years hence. Vegetative multiplication is not yet possible with respect to human beings, although that possibility cannot be ignored.