Recent advances in medically assisted conception: legal, ethical and social issues.

A review of reports, bills and legislation from around the world, during the period from 1987 to 1991, reveals certain areas of consensus on the possible or actual, ethical and legal regulation of medically assisted conception. Other areas remain controversial, due not only to cultural and religious differences but also to the social significance of the very implementation of these new technologies. Irrespective of these differences, the reformulation of certain shared international principles of human rights permits a greater specificity both in their translation and in their application to medically assisted conception. Areas discussed include the dignity of the person, the security of human genetic material, the quality of services, the inviolability of the person and the inalienability of the person.     

Choosing between possible lives: legal and ethical issues in preimplantation genetic diagnosis

This article critically appraises the current legal scope of the principal applications of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This relatively new technique, which is available to some parents undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, aims to ensure that a child is not born with a seemingly undesirable genetic condition. The question addressed here is whether there should be serious reasons to test for genetic conditions in embryos in order to be able to select between them. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Genetics Commission have decided that there should be such reasons by broadly aligning the criteria for PGD with those for selective abortion. This stance is critically explored, as are its implications for the possible use of PGD to select either against or for marginal features or for significant traits. The government is currently reviewing the legal scope and regulation of PGD.     

The ethical, legal and social implications of umbilical cord blood banking: learning important lessons from the protection of human genetic information

Internationally networked umbilical cord blood banks hold great promise for better clinical outcomes, but also raise a host of potential ethical and legal concerns. There is now significant accumulated experience in Australia and overseas with regard to the establishment of human genetic research databases and tissue collections, popularly known as "biobanks". For example, clear lessons emerge from the controversies that surrounded, stalled or derailed the establishment of some early biobanks, such as Iceland's deCODE, Autogen's Tonga database, a proposed biobank in Newfoundland, Canada, and the proposed Taiwan biobank. More recent efforts in the United Kingdom, Japan, Quebec and Tasmania have been relatively more successful in generating public support, recognising the critical need for openness and transparency, and ample public education and debate, in order to build community acceptance and legitimacy. Strong attention must be paid to ensuring that other concerns--about privacy, discrimination, informed consent, governance, security, commercial fairness and financial probity--are addressed in structural terms and monitored thereafter, in order to maintain public confidence and avoid a backlash that inevitably would imperil such research. Once lost, credibility is very difficult to restore.     

Oregon's guidelines for physician-assisted suicide: a legal and ethical analysis

Oregon's Death with Dignity Act was first passed by a ballot initiative in 1994, but numerous judicial challenges delayed implementation of the Act. In November of 1997, following the United States Supreme Court decisions in Vacco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg, which left the states' power to regulate physician-assisted suicide undisturbed, the Oregon voters upheld their law. Oregon remains the only state in the nation to authorize physician-assisted suicide. The Task Force to Improve the Care of Terminally Ill Oregonians published a Guidebook for health care providers on the Oregon Act, and the New England Journal of Medicine recently issued a special report on the first year's experience under the Act. This paper analyzes the legal context of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, discusses the efficacy of the tenets in the Guidebook, and explores ethical issues underlying the guidelines, particularly those pertaining to the meaning of a patient's request for assisted suicide and processes supporting informed consent.     

A moment in human development: legal protection, ethical standards and social policy on the selective non-treatment of handicapped neonates

Selective non-treatment decisions involving severely handicapped neonates have recently come under renewed judicial and legislative scrutiny. In this Article, the Author examines the legal, ethical and social considerations attendant to the non-treatment decision. In Part II of this Article the Author discusses the predominant ethical viewpoints relating to this issue and proposes a new moral standard based on personal interests. Part III presents a survey of the jurisprudence relating to selective non-treatment decisions. Parts IV and V of this Article provide a critical examination of the recently enacted Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, a federal legislative initiative designed to regulate treatment decisions relating to handicapped infants. The Author suggests that the ethical standards and treatment criteria proposed in this Article may prove useful to courts seeking to balance the handicapped neonate's constitutional right to privacy with the requirements of the new federal law.     

Race relations in police operations: A legal and ethical perspective for officers

This presentation looks beyond the contemporary controversy over the use of race in drug courier profiling and examines the broad spectrum of rare relations affecting police operations. Racial controversy is not new to law enforcement, nor is it a recent phenomenon in American society. American police do not get enough credit for the enormous amount of positive daily interaction within minority communities. Police are pervasively present within minority communities around the clock successfully solving disputes, responding to calls for service, and addressing community concerns. It is against this backdrop that many in law enforcement are becoming increasingly frustrated by the perception, if not the reality of deteriorating race relations between police and minorities. One thing is certain: police cannot withdraw from racial conflict. Police will continue to operate within minority communities, regardless of the racial composition of either the community or the law enforcement agency. Therefore, officer and supervisory training should not only focus on how to avoid racial conflict, but also on how to ethically and legally perform in an environment where treatment of minorities is critically examined.