Abstract
The purpose of this article is to summarize the way young medical professionals view these modern biomedical procedures and their moral acceptability. Materials and methods: A survey, filled in online, analyzing items in four main areas: genetic techniques, cloning, stem cell research, and assisted reproduction. Results: Most subjects agreed that the right to the genetic material should be a fundamental human right and that genetic engineering should be used if it could lead to the elimination os severe genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis and thalassemia. The least acceptance rate was obtained for techniques that would either change physical traits (like eye or hair color) or augment them. Most subjects agreed that the prenatal screening should be mandatory, and if the screening detects a severe congenital malformation the physician should recommend therapeutic abortion. Most subjects disagreed that cloning of any type, either therapeutic or reproductive, using human, animal, or vegetal genetic material. Most subjects agreed with the collection and storage of cord blood stem cells and the use of adult stem cells, and most of them disagreed with the creation of embryos specifically for obtaining stem cells. Conclusions: Even if the national legislation in this area is very scarce, the responses have usually identified the highly controversial techniques. If however the national legislation has elements similar to the items from the survey, they tended to take the respective items as morally acceptable without trying to analyze them critically.
Highlights
Debates in human genetics and its associated ethical issues and controversies are a global phenomenon, taking place in the context of local and regional contexts, either medical, legislative, or philosophical[1]
The items we chose for this study were generated by discussions with young physicians during their Bioethics module in previous years; we chose not to take an international, validated survey form as none was close enough to our specific needs
The items were divided into four main groups: statements about genetic engineering, cloning, assisted reproduction, and stem cells
Summary
Debates in human genetics and its associated ethical issues and controversies are a global phenomenon, taking place in the context of local and regional contexts, either medical, legislative, or philosophical[1]. Most important international ethical regulations in medicine and biomedical research in EU countries are nowadays the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, drawn by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, adopted by the Council for the International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) and WHO, the Declaration of Helsinki (currently the Cairo revision), and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine (Oviedo Convention) with its additional protocols. In Romania, Millard identified a completely formal ratification of the Convention - both the Senate and the National Assembly ratified both the Convention and its cloning protocol with unanimous voting, without any commentaries from the internal committees reviewing it before ratification (Judicial Committee, Discipline and Immunities Committee, Committee for Human Rights, Religion, and National Minorities, and Committee for Health and Family)(3)
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