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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1985

Moral thinking and government policy: the Warnock Committee on Human Embryology.

A parliamentary committee of inquiry was convened in response to growing concern--among the general public and the scientific community--about new techniques in human fertilization and research in embryology. The committee had to enter that jurisprudential minefield, the theoretical relation between morality and the law. When issues arise in which there is no historical tradition, the voice of morality may be genuinely confused and uncertain. But the law, unlike moral opinion, cannot be contradictory; it must be definite, unambiguous, and universally applicable.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1989

Committees and commissions in the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom there have been few committees or commissions dealing specifically with biomedical ethics, and where such bodies have been set up they have merely reported on a specific topic and then disbanded. However, there may well be standing committees in the future, of which the Voluntary Licensing Authority for Human In Vitro Fertilisation and Embryology is a precursor. This paper surveys the work of three special committees or working groups which have reported in the period 1970 to the present. Of these the Warnock Committee is by far the most important, and the issues which it raises are discussed with specific reference to the place of philosophers and theologians on such bodies. It is concluded that, although there has been some movement in the UK toward the utilization of those with special skills and knowledge in the field of bioethics, much more could be done in this regard.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1991

Ethical and legal implications in IVF and prenatal diagnosis in the U.K.

The natural desire for couples to be parents and the medical practitioner's inability to treat most genetic diseases have been responsible for some of the most exciting research into infertility and genetic disorders. This has led in the United Kingdom to the establishment of the Warnock Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilization and its report in 1984, and to a Review of the guidance on Research Use of Fetuses and Fetal Material published in 1989 and known as the Polkinghorne Report. The Warnock Report, among other ethical issues, considers the most fundamental question which has been debated for thousands of years, namely, What is life and when does it begin? More recently, the report has been responsible for new legislation which imposes ethical and legal restrictions on the scientific and medical community. The Polkinghorne Report recommends a voluntary code of practice which is morally and ethically acceptable within our society. We are also fortunate in the U.K. to have a parliamentary structure which allows debate on such important human issues and is prepared to impose ethical restrictions.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1993

Issues of gender in gamete donation.

Gamete donation refers to the practice whereby either semen or eggs are donated by a third party to enable infertile individuals or couples to become parents. This paper examines the way in which gender is deployed as a resource for organizing the meanings attached to that practice. The gender aspects of gamete donation are not always immediately apparent since semen and egg donation are often described as being essentially the same. However, a closer examination indicates that behind the claim of equivalence lies a set of unstated assumptions about their difference. These assumptions are tied to ideas about the ways in which men and women are thought to behave more generally in relation to reproduction and the family. This paper draws on two sources of empirical data to reveal how these assumptions are used: first, data from a detailed analysis of the Warnock Report (established by the British Government in 1982 to inquire into and make recommendations on techniques of human fertilization and embryology), which includes a cross-national and historical comparison with other government reports; second, data from a series of in-depth interviews with members of the Warnock Committee. The analysis of the reports suggests that historically semen donation was associated with 'deviant' sexuality (masturbation, adultery, illegitimacy) though paradoxically the extant nature of semen donation was then used to justify the acceptance of egg donation in later reports. This is despite the fact that in these later reports there are clear, albeit implicit, distinctions drawn between the two procedures in terms of donor motivation, the risks of being a donor, and the consequences of donation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Advisory Committees↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Human rights of an embryo.

Spontaneous ethical views very often spring just from feelings. But an ethical standpoint of any lasting value cannot be based just upon feelings. Relevant facts and values are indispensable. The purpose of the article is to draw the attention to the set of values that is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly the values of human life, human dignity, human liberty, human physical integrity and the brotherhood of man. More generally recognized values are difficult to find. The usefulness of them as criteria in ethical contexts is tested by applying them to a judging pro and con of research on human embryos. The testing is performed against the background of the report of the Warnock Committee.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed2005

The Baroness's Comittee and the President's Council: ambition and alienation in public bioethics.

The President's Council on Bioethics has tried to make a distinctive contribution to the methodology of such public bodies in developing what it has styled a "richer bioethics." The Council's procedure contrasts with more modest methods of public bioethical deliberation employed by the United Kingdom's Warnock Committee. The practices of both bodies are held up against the backdrop of concerns about moral and political alienation, prompted by the limitations of moral reasoning and by moral dissent from state policy under even the most democratic of governments. Although the President's Council's rhetoric is often scrupulously conciliatory, recurring features of its argumentative practice are regrettably divisive. They order these things better in Britain.

Advisory Committees↗
PubMed1986

The Warnock Report and single women: what about the children?

The Warnock Committee decided not to sanction artificial insemination by donor (AID) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF) for single heterosexual women or for lesbian women on the grounds that it is better for children to be born into a two-parent heterosexual family. From an examination of the effects on children of growing up in fatherless heterosexual and lesbian families, this paper questions that assumption.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Regulation before the HFEA.

As a result of the birth of Louise Brown, the Government, in 1982 set up the committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology (The Warnock Committee). This committee made a number of recommendations including one that recommended the setting up of a body to regulate these procedures. The Medical Research Council and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the interim set up a voluntary body to regulate the centres doing IVF. This was called the Voluntary Licensing Authority (VLA) for Human in-vitro Fertilisation and Embryology. Centres were visited and licensed. This body regulated the centres until the statutory body the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) was formed in 1990.

Embryology↗
PubMed2004

A conversation with Dr Anne McLaren, DBE, DPhil, FRS, FRCOG.

Anne McLaren is one of the world's foremost developmental biologists; a leader in elucidating the principles of early mammalian development whose research has underpinned advances in reproductive medicine and the treatment of infertility. After undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Oxford University and postdoctoral work in London, she was for 15 years at the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh followed by 18 years as Director of the MRC Mammalian Development Unit in London. She is currently a Group Leader at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1975 and became the first woman to hold office in that Society - as Foreign Secretary, from 1991-1996. Dr McLaren played a pivotal role in the creation of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. She was a member of the Warnock Committee, served on the Voluntary (later Interim) Licensing Authority and was a key member of the HFEA from its establishment until the end of 2001. She chaired the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group of WHO's Human Reproduction Programme and is President of the Association of Women in Science and Engineering. She is a member of the European Group on Ethics that advises the European Commission on social and ethical implications of new technologies. In 2002, she was awarded (jointly with A. K. Tarkowski) the Japan Prize for Developmental Biology. She continues to have one of the sharpest minds in the business; for her, science has been not only a joy but an intellectual adventure of the highest order. She is interviewed here by Editorial Board Member Jane Denton.

Developmental Biology↗
PubMed1987

Attitudes towards donor insemination--a post-Warnock survey.

In a multi-centred study, a total of 799 patients, donors and health-care professionals concerned with artificial insemination with donor semen (AID) responded to a questionnaire regarding their attitudes towards current provision of AID services and proposed legislation. There was little support for any fundamental change in the way in which AID is practised, at least in those centres. The anonymous status of the donor met with universal agreement. Although there was some support for the communication of non-identifying details to the recipient couple, where they wanted them, there was no support for any legislation which might give the AID child a right of access to details of the donor. The greatest divergence of opinion was over the question of who should have access to AID treatment and whether or not screening procedures should be applied to prospective parents. Most respondents felt that the closed and confidential relationship between the clinic and the other parties involved should not automatically be extended to general practitioners or any national bodies. In respect of specific recommendations of the Warnock Committee, there was support for changes which might legitimize or assist the present system, but not for any which might be restrictive.

Attitude↗
PubMed1993

Moral philosophy and public policy: the case of NRTs.

In this paper, I will express some reservations about the usefulness of moral philosophy for the analysis of public policy issues.... My question is whether taking morality seriously requires taking moral philosophy seriously. This paper focuses on one particular public policy context -- namely, government commissions into new reproductive technologies, such as Britain's Warnock Committee, Australia's Waller and Michael Committees, Canada's Baird Commission, and many others.... Moral philosophers are sometimes asked to participate in these commissions, either as Commissioners, staff, or expert advisers. How can moral philosophers contribute to the analysis of public policy recommendations on NRTs? A survey of the literature suggests that there are two main views on this question, one of which is ambitious, the other more modest. The ambitious view says that moral philosophers should attempt to persuade Commissioners to adopt the right comprehensive moral theory (e.g. adopt a deontological theory, rather than utilitarianism or contractarianism), and then apply this theory to particular policy questions. The more modest view shies away from promoting a particular moral theory, given that the relative merits of different moral theories are a subject of dispute even amongst moral philosophers. Instead, it says that moral philosophers should attempt to ensure that the Commission's arguments are clear and consistent. On this view, philosophers should focus on identifying conceptual confusions or logical inconsistencies within the Commission's arguments without seeking to influence its choice of the underlying theory.

Advisory Committees↗