Despite its impact, bio-technology's chief decision-makers are not elected officials. The issues surrounding the technology are not decided by democratic decision-making procedures. The managers of the biological revolution are a haphazard group of researchers, bureaucrats, doctors, businessmen, scientists and judges. Their decisions are, more often than not, made through arcane bureaucratic regulations, little publicized business or corporate board decisions, or local and federal court opinions. Some are motivated by the desire to heal and help society, others by the narrowest of notions concerning what is efficient or profitable.
This book attempts to lift the veil of secrecy and ignorance that has kept much of the engineering and marketing of life, "the human body shop," from full public review and comprehension. It is long overdue that this "shadow" side of modern science and economics be brought to the full light of public scrutiny.
The work begins with chapters on the sale and manipulation of blood, organs, and fetal parts; proceeds to describe the marketing and engineering of the elements and results of human reproduction -- semen, eggs, embryos, and children; and concludes with several chapters on the new biotechnology business of engineering, cloning, and patenting life forms including human beochemicals, genes, cells, and embryos.
The book will allow the reader to look into laboratories and corporate boardrooms of the designers and marketers of life, review the meetings of the bioregulators at the federal agencies, and understand how legislatures and courtrooms around the world are dealing with the legal controversies that surround the body shop. We will fully probe the motivations and objectives both of the individuals currently running the human body shop and its opponents. We will meet the beneficiaries of the marketing and engineering of life, and the body shop's many victims.
The final section of the book will examine the philosophical underpinnings of the human body shop. This is vital if we are to appreciate our current situation and adequately assess prospects for the coming century.....
The book will conclude with a number of specific biopolicies designed to steer our society away from the numerous ethical precipices to which the engineering and selling of life have brought us. ...we must balance our unquestioned belief in engineering principles and efficiency with a more empathetic relationship to life and the human body.
(taken from Introduction)
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