Rights and Liberties in the Biotech Age: Why We Need a Genetic Bill of Rights - Tapa blanda

With chimerical experiments already underway that insert human brain cells into mice and pigs, and with bio-nanotechnology waiting impatiently in the wings, what we lack is a vigorous and spirited public forum in which to examine and engage such developments. No more. The idea of a Genetic Bill of Rights is the provocative jump-start to a serious discussion of policy and action options--a collection presented in lucid prose and grounded in clear thinking. -- Duster, Troy The authors represented in this edited compilation call for a genetic Bill of Rights, in a sensible, humane, and rational manner. An interesting read! Highly recommended. Choice This book is a wonderful contribution to a much needed assessment of the potential dangers awaiting us if we proceed in a reckless way. Nature Biotechnology a very thought-provoking book and [I] heartily recommend it. Journal Of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics This book is a wonderful blend of the radical and the conservative. It is radical, and persuasive, in proposing a genetic bill of rights. It is conservative, and no less persuasive, in warning us to keep the genetic developments under close scrutiny and control. If we may need some of the genetic developments we no less need to be protected from some of them as well. An impressive and needed book. -- Callahan, Daniel

Rights and Liberties in the Biotech Age is the first book reaching broadly into biotechnology that imbeds the issues into a rights framework for the social management of technology. The contributors to the volume comprise prominent university scientists, civil rights lawyers, and public interest activists who bring their perspectives to issues where science and civil liberties meet head on. This book explores the impact of new genetic technologies on how people define their "personhood" and their basic civil liberties. It questions the thesis of "scientism" where "rights" must adapt and conform to technological changes. Instead, the authors explore the expansion of human rights in the face of new biomedical and bio-agricultural advances so that "rights" and not "technologies" are at the forefront of discussion.