On Ethics and Biotechnology

Abstract

585 Ethicists have long debated the propriety of various actual and potential uses of biotechnology. However, the debate has grown much more intense as the actual uses of biotechnology have increased in power. With the development of mammalian cloning and fetal stem cell technologies,1 the ethical debate over biotechnology is now regularly front-page news and includes concerns over genetic privacy and genetic discrimination.2 In much of the debate, there is a conspicuous absence of rigorous philosophical principles. For example, when human cloning is discussed, the debate is often reduced to the clashing of intuitive reactions that are diametrically opposed. Thus, it is a pleasure to publish Donrich Jordaan’s very thoughtful analysis of the ethics of preimplantation genetic screening and embryo selection. While some might argue with Mr. Jordaan’s choice of Popper’s open society value framework as the basis for ethical decision-making, there is great value in carefully defining an ethical framework and its values and then reasoning closely within that framework. We hope that publication of Mr. Jordaan’s article will add more light than heat to the generally overheated discussion of bioethics and biotechnology. In this issue, we are also pleased to publish a concise review of the issue of the legal status of genetic privacy, an issue that is of practical importance to the many biotechnology companies that use human tissues in their research. In this article by Mary Hildebrand, Jacqueline Klosek, and Walter Krzastek, the inconsistent patchwork of state law is discussed; and the important question of the appropriate theoretical basis for genetic privacy is succinctly analyzed.