ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the models of regulation of assisted conception and discusses the challenges of regulating medical practices. When assessing novel medical technologies – such as assisted conception – and their judicious introduction into therapeutic practice and the applicable form or nature of regulation, it is appropriate to distinguish a number of 'phases'. These include the developmental phase, the human subjects trial phase, the phase considering the incorporation of the technology into health care, and the diffusion phase. The chapter then suggests a number of background philosophical and specifically sociological questions upon which models of regulation must be predicated. Further, it discusses two specific issues that can be used, and are used only in an illustrative fashion to disclose some of the trials of working with a statutory scheme of regulation. These two questions are the recovery and storage of ovarian tissue and gametes and the posthumous use of recovered gametes.