Biomedical Technology and Public Policy

As biomedical technologies explode, they offer new hope for many and expanded opportunities for controlling life. Yet even as they do, they create unparalleled ethical and political dilemmas. Choices must be made regarding what technologies are to be developed and to whom their benefits will be available. Social consequences of these choices must be explored and fully understood. Moreover, public officials must meet these issues head-on, formulating clearly articulated policy objectives in this complex arena. This volume is designed to provide a framework for studying as a comprehensive whole, the public policy implications of biomedical technologies. Each of its chapters focuses on the policy issue and political activities surrounding a single technology or set of related technologies. The articles are grouped into four sections based on the stage of life at which a particular technology has its great impact: prior to or at conception, during the prenatal or neonatal period, within the life cycle and at the end of life. Its focus is public policy as opposed to purely ethnical considerations.