What Do the Recent Strides Made In Genetics and New Reproductive Technologies?

What Do the Recent Strides Made In Genetics and New Reproductive Technologies?

We've been hearing the past few days about new developments in genetic technologies, some of the issues they raise, their eugenic potential. In some respects, the issues -- or rather the questions -- are the same, whether one is in Germany or Britain or the US or wherever -- is it morally acceptable to experiment on embryos? Or on people who cannot give their consent? Will widespread gene testing of adults lead to discrimination? Does gene research increase the likelihood of biological weapons being deployed and used?

But in other respects, the issues and questions raised are not at all the same, because, despite 'globalisation' or 'McDonaldisation', our countries are still different, they have different cultures, legislation, histories, economies and so forth. How these genetic developments play out, what significance they have is thus different in different places for different people.

I've been involved in Britain over the past few years in analysing and lobbying against the change of the law to extend the purposes for which research on embryos is permitted -- in what has become more commonplace language, cloning and embryo stem cell research.

Given current pressures to change the 1990 Embryo Protection Act in Germany, it might be useful to describe the process in the UK, the arguments used for and against, and so forth -- but I'm not going to.

Or rather, instead of looking just at the national dynamics, I'd like to use the UK example of cloning and embryo stem cell research to think about the international dynamics of this research, the international dimension of these industries, and what that means for campaigning and lobbying, both on an international level but also on a national level, given our different national contexts.

I'm mainly going to refer to Britain, Germany and the US, but there are of course significant developments taking place elsewhere which are part of the dynamic: in France, in Italy, which has pushed the limits of IVF and where it's been announced that efforts will go ahead to produce the first cloned baby; in Australia, where Monash University, another IVF pioneer, has applied for a patent on 'breeding human embryos', while Amrad, an Australian company has been granted a European patent to produce human-animal hybrids using human embryonic stem cells.

For developing countries, meanwhile, the issues are quite different again: in countries which have rudimentary health care systems and which now have to charge people to use them anyway, which are often not allowed under IMF or World Bank programmes to spend any more on health care, far more pressing concerns are access to food, water and livelihoods and primary health care -- and concerns about becoming the experimental target for gene-based drugs.

Dolly, the cloned sheep, born 4 years ago in February 1997, eventually prompted proposals to look into treatments for diseased or damaged tissues or ...