Abstract

The in vitro fertilization industry is generally unregulated in the United States, although individual states have enacted laws trying to rein in some of the more flagrant abuses of the practice. The weakness in the American system is the failure to protect the rights of experimental subjects, first expressed in the 1949 Nuremberg Code and again in the 1979 Belmont Report, which emphasized the need to protect those with diminished responsibility. Who is more vulnerable to mistreatment than the unborn? A different approach exists in Great Britain, where the national government regulates the production and use of human embryos. There are advantages to the British practice: it encourages scientists to publicize what they propose to do; it can focus the public on the objective good or harm of a particular proposal; and it makes it easier to identify the currents of thought which contribute to the political advocacy of IVF.