Commercializing reproductive technologies
ethical issues
pp. 151-172
in: Paul T. Durbin (ed), Technology and responsibility, Berlin, Springer, 1987Abstrakt
These allegations from the congressional testimony of a prominent reproductive biologist epitomize the reproductive researcher's case for social support and public funding. The speaker, Gary Hodgen, has claimed publicly that he resigned his former position at the National Institutes of Health in protest over U.S. governmental policy withholding federal funding for reproductive technology research. He is now scientific director at a medical school facility deriving much of its research funding from the treatment of infertile patients. At the time of these congressional hearings in the U.S., the British government had already released the Warnock Commission Report on Human Fertilization and Embryology; the Australian Waller Commission on Reproductive Technology and announced submission of its findings; and already several Western European countries had established investigatory bodies. The time was right, some believed, to consider the need for regulation in the U.S.