Preimplantation genetic diagnosis from the perspective of selected legal and ethical judgments: analyzes and reflections
Journal Title: Polish Law Review - Year 2016, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
For a long time, debates have been organised on the subject of the status of the human embryo.Subsequent socio-scientific discussion usually reveals the true ethical context of this matter. On the basis, also, of theological reflections, the following question has been asked down the ages: At what specific point can we begin to speak of a human existence? The dynamic advances we have seen in medical development mean, however, that any similar analysis undertaken now in this field should be of a legal nature.Scientific progress has made it possible nowadays for a doctor or laboratory diagnostician to bring about the conception of a child outside the mother’s body. Such experts are also capable of assessing the status of the embryo.<br/><br/>Concerning the above assessment, expert committees are ever more often pondering the legal and ethical issues therein.They point out the importance of the preimplantation diagnosis of the embryo and attempt to pinpoint standards of behaviour with regard to human beings in their earliest stages of development. At this point it is essential to consider the following: do the law and ethics manage to “keep up” with biomedical developments?In other words, is legal reflection today capableof incorporating all of the important issues that must be taken into account when debating life in the embryonic stage of development.Preimplantation diagnosis is a technique which, for a long time now, has gone hand in hand with in vitro procedures. The aim of this is to eliminate defective embryos from the reproductive process. In discussion on this subject, the following question often arises: are embryos already people?At this point, it is worth considering the following question, as well: do embryos not in fact become de facto patients, when they are the beneficiaries of medical services, such as medical diagnostics? Yet is a similar perspective to the above recognised by the aforementioned legal and ethical bodies? Is it even possible, in today’s world, to overlook the ‘patient-esque’ perspective of embryos?Would the previously mentioned elimination of embryos not amount to exactly the same violations of rights of a patient? Attempts will be made here to respond to these questions, using an analysis of the two judgements delivered by the European Court of Human Rights and the Polish Bioethics Committee at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN).<br/><br/>
Authors and Affiliations
Błażej Kmieciak
Keywords
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