Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword: shopping at the genetic supermarket
- List of abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Is inheritable genetic modification the new dividing line?
- 2 The science of inheritable genetic modification
- 3 Nuclear cloning, embryonic stem cells, and gene transfer
- 4 Controlling bodies and creating monsters: popular perceptions of genetic modifications
- 5 Inheritable genetic modification as moral responsibility in a creative universe
- 6 Ethics and welfare issues in animal genetic modification
- 7 Radical rupture: exploring biologic sequelae of volitional inheritable genetic modification
- 8 “Alter-ing” the human species? Misplaced essentialism in science policy
- 9 Traditional and feminist bioethical perspectives on gene transfer: is inheritable genetic modification really the problem?
- 10 Inheritable genetic modification and disability: normality and identity
- 11 Regulating inheritable genetic modification, or policing the fertile scientific imagination? A feminist legal response
- 12 Inheritable genetic modification: clinical applications and genetic counseling considerations
- 13 Can bioethics speak to politics about the prospect of inheritable genetic modification? If so, what might it say?
- Glossary of scientific terms
- Index
6 - Ethics and welfare issues in animal genetic modification
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword: shopping at the genetic supermarket
- List of abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Is inheritable genetic modification the new dividing line?
- 2 The science of inheritable genetic modification
- 3 Nuclear cloning, embryonic stem cells, and gene transfer
- 4 Controlling bodies and creating monsters: popular perceptions of genetic modifications
- 5 Inheritable genetic modification as moral responsibility in a creative universe
- 6 Ethics and welfare issues in animal genetic modification
- 7 Radical rupture: exploring biologic sequelae of volitional inheritable genetic modification
- 8 “Alter-ing” the human species? Misplaced essentialism in science policy
- 9 Traditional and feminist bioethical perspectives on gene transfer: is inheritable genetic modification really the problem?
- 10 Inheritable genetic modification and disability: normality and identity
- 11 Regulating inheritable genetic modification, or policing the fertile scientific imagination? A feminist legal response
- 12 Inheritable genetic modification: clinical applications and genetic counseling considerations
- 13 Can bioethics speak to politics about the prospect of inheritable genetic modification? If so, what might it say?
- Glossary of scientific terms
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Unlike the situation in human animals, inheritable genetic modification (IGM) is currently implemented in non-human animals. Targeted mutants (transgenic animals) and random mutants are widely created in medical research. A number of animal species have already been cloned, with plans underway to clone many others, including pets, species on the verge of extinction, and species that are already extinct.
Genetically-modified non-human animals (hereafter, “animals”) are used in basic and pre-clinical research as well as in product development and agriculture research. They are used as disease models, as sources of organs for experimental xenotransplantation, as bioreactors for the production of therapeutic proteins (“pharming”), and as test animals for vaccines and toxins. Thus, while we might hope to be designers in human IGM, we are already designers in animal IGM.
Although animal IGM deserves ethical consideration in its own right without necessarily referring to human IGM, it can be instructive for human IGM, as some of our fears and hopes for human IGM might already be realized in animal IGM. Indeed, the major concerns in animal genetic modification are similar to those voiced in connection with potential human IGM technology, namely concerns about animal welfare and risks to human health and the environment. For example, there are fears that genetically-modified animals might escape into the environment and alter evolutionary balances or be somehow involved in the modification of the human genome.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Ethics of Inheritable Genetic ModificationA Dividing Line?, pp. 103 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
- 1
- Cited by