In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Development of Reprogenetic Policy and Practice in the United States Looking to the United Kingdom C H A P T E R E L E V E N The development of reprogenetics policy in the United States is in a state of flux. The most recent and perhaps most influential development in this area comes in the form of the 2004 report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies. Early in this report, which is described by the council as a diagnosis of the clinical and regulatory status of reprogenetics in the United States, there is a careful delineation of what has and what has not been achieved over the course of a more than two-year effort on the part of the council. In the letter of transmittal accompanying the report to the president of the United States, Council Chair Leon Kass writes the following: The Council finds that our regulatory institutions have not kept pace with our rapid technological advance. Indeed, there is today no public authority responsible for monitoring or overseeing how these technologies make their way from the experimental to the clinical stage, from novel approach to widespread practice . There is no authority public or private that monitors how or to what extent these new technologies are being or will be used, or that is responsible for attending to the ways that they affect the health and well-being of the participants or the character of human reproduction more generally. Our existing regulatory institutions , such as the FDA or local institutional review boards, do not at the present time oversee this area, and the welcome ethical standards promulgated by the professional societies are somewhat limited in scope and not binding on individual practitioners. (President’s Council on Bioethics 2004, xvii) G L A D Y S B . W H I T E Despite this sweeping admission of all that is arguably not up to snuff in the United States, it is nevertheless surprising that the Council states early in the report that thinking about regulating new reproductive biotechnologies [is] extremely complicated in ways largely peculiar to the U.S. Although the Council has heard presentations on regulatory schemes used in other countries, this document does not deal with them. We are eager, first of all, to disclose and assess what is going on in our own country and, given the noted peculiarities of American law and political culture, there is good reason to doubt whether foreign practices can serve directly as models for what we can and should do here. In any event, there is no consensus among those nations which have chosen to regulate in this domain. (2004, 12) The argument I present in this chapter counters what appears to be a facile conclusion on the part of the President’s Council, namely, that there are no “foreign practices which can directly serve as a model for what we can and should do here.” I argue here that important lessons can be learned and strategies can reasonably be adopted from the practices put in place in the United Kingdom to deliver assisted reprogenetic services. These strategies can be utilized , and in one case have been utilized, even in the absence of overarching legislation like that establishing the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The four key strategies I discuss are (1) licensing of infertility treatment centers, (2) public consultation, (3) scientific review and approval of innovative practice before new services are offered to patients, and (4) specific and explicit attention to the welfare of the child born as a result of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). In addition to discerning what kinds of lessons can be learned from the U.K. experience, it is important to keep in mind that human reproduction is a feature of the human condition. It neither results from nor is contained by the legal or regulatory structure of particular nations. Human reproduction is at its essence biological, even when technological assists are employed. It is also worth noting that prohibitions in one country need not limit the reproductive options of its citizens, who may simply go elsewhere to seek reproductive assistance. The Diane Blood case, in which Ms. Blood sought to be inseminated with the sperm from her deceased husband, was refused permission to do so in the United Kingdom, and then went to Belgium to have the procedure completed, is a demonstration of this reality (BBC News...

Share