ABSTRACT
The last few years have seen a remarkable growth in the understanding of genetics as applied in medicine and rapid advances in the technology for the detection of mutations leading to genetic diseases. This development must also be considered with regard to the regulation of the use of new methods in medically assisted reproduction, particularly when intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is employed. This latter technique has also engendered an ethical debate of its own. Genetic defects leading to disease or a predisposition thereto are already present in gametes before conception. They can therefore be detected from that point on, or in the first embryonic stages after conception (for summary see Muller 1998).
