ABSTRACT
When there is a trade-off between costs and benets, there will always be a debate (often heated) about how to proceed. One source of this controversy is that there is a lack of universal agreement on what is a cost and what is a benet for a given issue. Individuals assign different weights to perceived costs and benets. Ethical debate in the elds of molecular biology and genetics is related to diverse issues such as novelty, the unknown, religious beliefs, and nascent technical abilities. Individuals considering genetic engineering and related elds would be well-served to develop a clear ethical framework for decision making.
