ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impacts of new knowledge— impacts that create dilemmas of moral choice felt at both the personal and policy level. It discusses two controversial technologies, often employed in conjunction with each other, that have widespread legal and policy implications. The first technology is that of genetic screening and its uses in the discovery of inheritable diseases. The second is the whole area of reproductive technologies, including artificial insemination, sperm banking, amniocentesis, ultrasound scanning of fetuses, in vitro fertilization, and cryopreservation of embryos. Genetic screening was developed from extensive research on the recombining, or splicing, of human genes. Artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization are distinct reproductive technologies, which doctors frequently use together to enable couples to conceive when either the prospective mother or father has an inadequate reproductive capacity. Genetic screening raises issues of individual and social rights in several contexts.
