ABSTRACT
Professional self-regulation in the clinical management of infertility has become subject to critical scrutiny, even by those within the field. Existing guidelines have been flouted and there is a growing demand for greater social and ethical accountability. Yoxen refers to an ‘unstable sense of concern’.1 Specific anxieties about practices in the field of medically assisted reproduction now have put pressure on the government to legislate. The drafters of the few statutes in UK law which relate to obstetric practice did not envisage the emergence of the new technologies of pre-natal intervention.
