Can fetal tissue transplantation be done legally?
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P Kasimba.
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We examine the role of Australian state and federal committees and law reform commissions in bioethics. Most have been concerned with in vitro fertilization and embryo research. We find deficiencies in the standards of reasoning about the underlying ethical issues raised by these techniques. We suggest stronger representation of those with a background in ethics.
The infertility (Medical Procedures) Act (Victoria) is the first legislation in the common-law world designed to regulate the practice of in vitro fertilization. This act explicitly prohibits "cloning," without providing a definition of this term. The legislative history of the act suggests that it refers only to the production of multiple, identical copies of human individuals. But other scientific procedures, for which cloning is also a correct scientific term, may unintentionally be banned. The act should be amended in order to remove doubts about the position of molecular biologists, cytologists, and cytogeneticists, whose work may involve the production of "clones" of human cells and/or human genes in vitro.